T)   I- 


A  WAY  OF  HONOR 

AND 

OTHER    COLLEGE   SERMONS 

By 
HENRY  KINGMAN,  D.D. 


NEW  YORK  CHICAGO  TORONTO 

Fleming    H.    Revell    Company 

LONDON       AND       EDINBURGH 


Copyright,  191  r,  by 
FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 


New  York:  158  Fifth  Avenue 
Chicago:  125  N.  Wabash  Ave. 
Toronto:  25  Richmond  St.,  W. 
London :  21  Paternoster  Square 
Edinburgh:  100  Princes  Street 


TO    MY  WIFE 


2130592 


PREFACE 

THE  truths  that  inspire  the  world  are  likely 
to  be  old-fashioned  truths.  But  we  are  im- 
patient of  old  fashions.  It  is  the  problem 
of  the  preacher  to  commend  the  ancient  messages 
of  Jesus  and  the  apostles  to  those  who  demand  that 
their  text-books  in  other  lines  should  have  been 
written  within  ten  years  in  order  to  secure  a  hear- 
ing. It  is  the  firm  conviction  of  the  writer  that  the 
essentials  of  the  message  that  once  stirred  Galilee 
and  Rome  are  intensely  and  incisively  fresh  and  in- 
teresting to  each  new  generation :  and  that  there  is 
nothing  to  which  the  critical  college  student  of  our 
day  listens  with  deeper  attention  than  these  same 
words  of  Jesus,  related  to  the  issues  of  our  time. 

The  following  addresses  were  prepared  for  such 
an  audience  of  college  men  and  women,  and  were 
delivered  in  the  Congregational  Church  of  Clare- 
mont,  California,  where  half  the  audience  is  made 
up  of  the  students  of  Pomona  College.  They  are 
printed  only  at  the  earnest  solicitation  of  friends, 
to  whom  they  seemed  to  have  a  wider  message  than 
their  original  use  made  possible.  Their  only  claim 


Preface 

to  a  hearing  must  be  in  the  simplicity  with  which 
certain  long  familiar  truths  may  appear  in  them, 
for  the  comfort  of  men  and  women  who  have  still 
to  walk  by  faith  and  not  by  sight. 

HENRY  KINGMAN. 

CLAREMONT,  CALIFORNIA, 
August,  191 1. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.     A  WAY  OF  HONOR n 

II.     A  GOOD  FIGHT 26 

III.  THE  MAN  BORN  BLIND     .         .         .         -41 

IV.  MAKING  A  CONVENIENCE  OF  CHRIST         .     56 
V.  WITH  FEET  OF  CLAY         .         .         .         .70 

VI.  THE  ANCIENT  AND  HONORABLE  COMPANY 

OF  THE  CHURCH 84 

VII.  THE  OBEDIENCE  OF  JESUS          .         .         .98 

VIII.  THE  POWER  OF  AN  AFFIRMATION      .         .112 

IX.  THE  REPROACH  OF  CHRIST        .         .         .127 

X.  LIFE  THROUGH  VICTORY  ....   141 

XI.  GOD  FIRST 156 

XII.  SIMON  OF  CYRENE 170 

XIII.  THE  SINLESSNESS  OF  JESUS        .         .         .  184 

XIV.  A  LIFE  PURPOSE 196 


A  Way  of  Honor 

"  Whatsoever  things  are  true,  whatsoever  things  are 
honorable,  whatsoever  things  are  just,  whatsoever  things 
are  pure,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things 
are  of  good  report;  if  there  be  any  virtue  and  if  there  be 
any  praise,  think  on  these  things." — PHIL.  4:8. 

PAUL  was  no  pessimist.     He  knew  that  the 
world  was  full  of  things  true  and  honorable 
and  lovely ;  and  that  a  man  might,  as  a  matter 
of  habit  and  principle,  fill  his  mind  and  heart  with 
these  things,  and  so  keep  his  mind  wholesome  and 
pure,  and  his  heart  sweet  and  loving,  even  in  this 
present  evil  world. 

Neither  was  Paul  blindly  an  optimist.  He  knew 
that  the  world  was  full  of  things  false  and  dishon- 
orable, yes,  and  disgusting;  and  that  a  man  might 
— as  many  did  and  do — fill  his  mind  with  these 
things  to  the  point  of  losing  faith  in  man  and  God. 
He  knew  how  the  young  Christian  could  cripple 
and  disfigure,  or  perfect  and  beautify,  his  soul's  life, 
according  as  he  saw  and  dwelt  on  these  things  or 
their  opposite.  So,  as  a  Christian  gentleman,  and 
a  pure  and  knightly  soul,  he  besought  them  to  shut 

ii 


12  A  Way  of  Honor 

their  minds  to  one  great  side  of  life,  and  open  them 
to  another.  And,  as  a  very  practical  and  sensible 
man,  not  a  mere  scholar  or  theologian,  he  told  them 
what  he  meant  by  this,  and  how  his  bidding  might 
be  carried  out. 

He  urged  them,  as  in  this  verse,  to  form  the 
habit  and  principle  of  noticing,  seeking  out,  and 
dwelling  upon,  such  things  in  life  as  are  honorable 
and  lovely  in  the  sight  of  God  and  men  alike;  and 
elsewhere  he  urged  them,  no  less  earnestly,  to  shun 
both  thought  and  speech  on  certain  other  facts  of 
life,  no  less  real,  but  which  it  was  a  shame  for  a 
man,  living  as  a  friend  of  Jesus  Christ  and  in  the 
eye  of  God,  so  much  as  to  converse  about.  "  I 
would  have  you,"  he  says,  "  to  be  wise  unto  that 
which  is  good,  and  simple  unto  that  which  is  evil." 

This  means  a  crippling  of  one's  observation,  does 
it  not;  a  one-sidedness  of  knowledge  and  experience 
which  a  true  man  of  the  world  would  not  consent 
to?  Yes,  it  is  unsymmetrical  and  one-sided,  just 
as  the  famous  art-galleries  of  the  world  are  one- 
sided and  untrue  to  life,  so  far  as  they  depict,  in 
marble  and  on  canvas,  only  the  beauties  of  the 
natural  human  form  and  not  the  deformities  and 
monstrosities  that  are  to  be  found  in  the  medical 
museums.  And  just  as  these  last  are  shocking  and 
painful  to  any  artistic  eye,  so  Paul  would  have  the 
young  converts  cultivate  a  spiritual  sense  to  which 


A  Way  of  Honor  13 

the  cruel  deformities  and  excrescences  of  life — its 
moral  abnormities — should  become  honestly  shock- 
ing and  painful  also,  as  they  were  to  Jesus. 

Paul  believed  in  a  distinct  self-limitation,  alike 
in  knowledge  and  development.  He  did  not  believe 
that  a  man  should  be  equally  open-eyed  and  open- 
minded  to  all  the  facts  of  life.  He  was  not  the 
man  to  fear  the  charge  of  lack  of  courage  or  lack 
of  breadth  because  he  refused  and  abhorred  the 
knowledge  he  could  have  got  from  any  of  the  young 
blades  of  Corinth,  or  from  keeping  his  eyes  and 
ears  attentively  open  to  all  that  a  heathen  world 
might  have  to  say  to  them.  He  was  a  specialist, 
with  a  specialist's  frank  courage  to  relinquish 
knowledge  in  lines  utterly  out  of  relation  with  his 
own.  He  was,  as  you  and  I  would  be,  a  specialist, 
as  we  may  say,  in  virtue,  seeking  ever  to  lay  hold 
of  that  for  which  he  was  laid  hold  of  by  his  Master, 
Jesus  Christ. 

He  could  not,  then,  have  a  well-rounded  acquaint- 
ance with  all  the  ways  and  thoughts  of  avarice  and 
cunning  and  malice  and  uncleanness,  in  which  it  is 
so  easy  to  perfect  one's  self  by  a  little  persevering 
observation  and  inquiry.  For  the  sake  of  having 
a  mind  like  Christ,  he  would  seek  to  have  it  as  far 
as  possible  unsoiled  by  images  that  sear  the  brain 
and  haunt  the  imagination  life-long,  starting  up 
like  spectres  when  most  undesired,  and  that — like 


14  A  Way  of  Honor 

Banquo's  ghost — will  not  down  at  our  command. 
Even  at  the  risk  of  being  called  narrow  or  Puritanic 
or  goody-goody — could  you  stand  that? — Paul 
would  have  a  man  remember  that  he  is  a  specialist, 
that  Christ  is  his  Teacher,  and  that  Christ  set  the 
example  of  self -limitation  at  a  prodigious  cost:  a 
cost  infinitely  greater  than  that  asked  from  us,  of 
deliberately  trying  to  starve  the  mind  in  its  un- 
doubted craving  for  knowledge  of  things  hurtful 
and  dishonoring,  cruel  and  unlovely  and  impure, 
even  though  newspapers  and  dramatists  and  literary 
realists  of  our  day  tell  us  that  this  craving  is  nat- 
ural and  legitimate,  and  must  be  met. 

It  is  a  very  prosaic  rule  that  Paul  lays  down, — 
somewhat  wooden  and  arbitrary  to  the  thought  of 
many :  the  rule  of  deliberately  and  systematically 
looking  for  and  feeding  upon  what  is  good  and 
beautiful  and  true,  and  doggedly  refusing  to  join 
in  the  search  for  what  is  as  poisonous  as  it  may  be 
fascinating.  It  is  a  prosaic  rule,  but  it  leads  in 
the  end  to  a  character  exquisitely  beautiful,  natural, 
and  strong.  It  must  have  been  Christ's  rule,  as 
He  listened  to  the  talk  of  the  village  neighbors, 
gathered  in  the  shade  for  the  noon  siesta,  or  for 
the  evening  gossip — the  strongly  flavored  daily 
newspaper  of  His  time.  And  it  has  been  the  rule 
and  practice  of  all  since  then  whose  memory  chiefly 
gives  us  faith  in  the  possibilities  of  human  kind. 


A  Way  of  Honor  15 

I  wish  that  every  young  man  and  woman  might 
have  in  mind  the  famous  dedication  in  the  biog- 
raphy of  Charles  Kingsley,  written  by  his  wife. 
This  is  it : 

"  To  the  beloved  memory  of  a  righteous  man,  who 
loved  God  and  truth  above  all  things.  A  man  of 
untarnished  honor,  loyal  and  chivalrous,  gentle  and 
strong,  modest  and  humble,  tender  and  true,  pitiful 
to  the  weak,  yearning  after  the  erring;  stern  to  all 
forms  of  wrong  and  oppression,  yet  most  stern  to- 
ward himself;  who  being  angry,  yet  sinned  not. 
Whose  highest  virtues  were  known  only  to  his  wife, 
his  children,  his  servants,  and  the  poor.  Who  lived 
in  the  presence  of  God  here,  and  passing  through 
the  grave  and  gate  of  death,  now  liveth  unto  God 
forevermore." 

The  world  does  not  possess  such  men,  except  as 
they  are  the  product  of  such  a  rule  of  life  as  this 
of  Paul's.  They  are  the  most  characteristic  product 
of  a  Christian  civilization.  A  Christian  gentleman; 
not  only  a  Christian  but  a  gentleman;  not  only  a 
gentleman  but  a  Christian;  true,  honorable,  just, 
pure,  lovely.  And  the  Christian  world  is  full  of 
lives  like  this — if  we  but  knew  them — and  of  deeds 
and  ways  and  thoughts  like  this,  with  which  we 
may  largely  fill  our  minds,  and  so  determine  our 
growth  and  development.  Christ  in  His  words  and 
ways  is  our  chief  inspiration,  but  not  the  only  one; 


1 6  A  Way  of  Honor 

and  Paul  bids  the  young  Christians  to  look  about 
them  for  every  one  and  every  thing  that  may  help 
them  to  pure  living  and  high  thinking. 


"  Whatsoever  things  are  true,  think  on  these 
things."  John  says  that  truth  came  by  Jesus  Christ. 
The  old  heathen  world  sneered  at  truth.  Until  to- 
day the  Orient  scarce  knows  what  it  is  to  hold 
truth  and  sincerity  dear  as  life.  But  Jesus  Christ 
was  truth  incarnate,  and  doubtless  every  Christian 
who  really  masters  His  spirit  is  as  true  as  steel. 
But  such  a  man  is  a  choice  man  and  rare,  and 
the  world  is  sorely  in  need  of  more  of  his  kind — 
not  only  of  those  who  tell  the  truth,  but  of  those 
who  are  true — not  only  the  same  on  week-days  as 
on  Sundays,  or  who  have  the  same  spirit  in  busi- 
ness as  in  the  prayer-meeting,  but  who  would  be 
the  same  on  a  pleasure  tour  alone  in  a  European 
capital  as  among  those  who  know  them  best  at 
home;  true,  because  consciously  living  in  the 
searching  eye  of  God,  and  in  heart  loyal  to  Him; 
not  to  the  church,  nor  to  society,  nor  to  social  con- 
ventions, from  whose  restraints  one  is  sometimes 
freed,  but  true  to  a  present  Friend  and  Companion, 
Jesus  Christ. 

We  need  to  think  on  everything  that  reminds  us 


A  Way  of  Honor  17 

what  real  truth  demands;  on  what  it  has  meant  to 
other  lives,  and  of  how  noble  it  is  when  it  has 
been  achieved.  We,  even  in  Christendom,  live  every 
day  in  sight  of  untruth  in  myriad  forms.  We  are 
in  grievous  need  of  every  aid  we  can  get  to  remind 
us  what  it  is  to  be  unswervingly  loyal  to  one's  con- 
viction; to  refuse  to  say  what  we  wish  to  be  true, 
rather  than  what  is  true ;  to  be  unwilling,  as  it  were 
unable,  to  bow  the  knee  to  good  policy,  or  political 
necessity,  or  popular  preferences,  at  the  sacrifice  of 
untarnished  loyalty  to  our  real  allegiance;  to  prefer 
scrupulous  honor  to  a  little  additional  gain  in  a 
bargain;  honestly  to  abhor  disingenuousness  and 
indirection;  to  remember  that  a  lie  is  a  stain  on 
our  honor,  even  if  told  to  a  corporation. 

We  need  to  be  reminded  that  the  way  of  the 
world  is  not  the  only  way  that  men  are  treading; 
that  there  are  other  ideals  in  life  than  those  of  a 
diplomacy  which  gains  its  ends  by  cunning  or  eva- 
sion; of  a  trade  which  is  not  ashamed  to  use  lying 
labels,  or  to  overreach  a  competitor;  of  a  press 
which,  in  a  political  campaign,  both  in  England  and 
America,  largely  misrepresents  and  systematically 
slanders  its  opponents;  of  a  political  life  in  which 
personal  convictions  are  often  sacrificed  to  expedi- 
ency or  to  party  pressure;  of  a  society  where  sin- 
cerity is  not  considered  a  thing  needful;  or  of  a 
private  life  with  two  sides.  In  every  one  of  these 


1 8  A  Way  of  Honor 

fields  of  life — wherever  the  influence  of  Jesus  is  in 
control — there  are  other  ideals  and  other  practices. 
But  we  need  to  look  for  them,  to  remember  them, 
to  reflect  upon  their  unspoken  appeal  to  our  own 
hearts;  and  to  keep  ourselves  strong  in  the  truth 
by  keeping  in  the  great  fellowship  of  unswervingly 
truthful  souls. 


ii 


"  Whatsoever  things  are  honorable."  The  old 
version  had  "  honest,"  but  that  is  not  quite  the 
meaning,  though  certainly  it  covers  that.  It  is 
rather  the  sense  of  "  seemly,"  "  deserving  of  re- 
spect," "honorable."  Our  Lord  was. a  man  of 
honor.  You  remember  that  curious  passage  in  one 
of  Dr.  Livingstone's  journals,  written  in  a  time  of 
danger  and  despondency,  when  he  was  holding  on 
by  faith  to  one  of  our  Lord's  promises.  He  says, 
"  I  count  that  our  Lord  Jesus  was  a  very  perfect 
gentleman,  and  He  will  keep  his  word."  And  that 
is  true,  though  the  way  of  putting  it  may  seem 
strange. 

We  sometimes  speak  of  a  public  character  as  a 
man  of  "  high  honor."  That  would  seem  to  indi- 
cate that  there  is  a  lower  grade  of  honor  prevailing 
even  among  good  men;  men  who  are  not  scrupu- 
lously honorable  in  the  small  details  of  life,  who 


A  Way  of  Honor  19 

are  not  above  overreaching  a  little  if  the  sufferer 
is  well  able  to  stand  the  loss, — as  in  the  case  of 
the  government,  or  a  railway  company,  or  a 
wealthy  corporation ;  and  who,  in  other  very  trifling 
ways,  would  act  as  we  cannot  conceive  our  Lord 
would  act  were  He  upon  earth,  because  He  was  a 
man  of  high  honor. 

Very  often  the  answer  is  made  to  such  an  in- 
dictment as  this,  "  Oh  yes,  but  every  one  does  the 
same,  and  every  one  expects  it  to  be  done."  This 
shows  what  need  there  is  to  heed  Paul's  injunction 
to  think  on  whatever  things  are  honorable — for  that 
answer  is  not  true.  Everywhere  are  those,  though 
they  may  be  very  quiet  or  humble  people,  who  are 
of  a  higher  honor  than  to  profit  by  another's  loss, 
and  who  are  honestly  endeavoring  to  do  as  Jesus 
would  do  in  like  case.  For  those  who  really  count 
themselves  followers  of  Christ,  the  stately  principle 
of  noblesse  oblige  holds  good,  as  it  did  not  even  for 
the  old  nobility  of  France.  We  are  the  nobility, 
of  the  family  of  God,  with  our  king  among  us. 
If  the  current  of  popular  indifference  to  high  honor, 
in  these  and  in  many  other  small  obligations  of 
student  and  business  life,  threatens  to  sweep  us 
away  from  a  noble  resolution,  let  us  look  up  at 
our  Lord  and  consider  what  He  expects  of  us,  and 
think  again  upon  whatsoever  things  are  honor- 
able. 


20  A  Way  of  Honor 


in 


"  Whatsoever  things  are  pure."  Thank  God  that 
there  were  never  so  many  such  things  to  look  out 
upon  before.  One  who  would  think  upon  these 
things  is  in  a  great  company  to-day.  Yet  he  needs 
every  atom's  weight  of  their  sympathy  and  fellow- 
ship to  hold  him  uncompromising  in  the  face  of  the 
many  who  call  him  a  fool  and  a  Philistine  for  his 
pains.  There  is  an  old-fashioned  saying,  once  pop- 
ular and  much  abused,  but  now  grown  sadly  out  of 
repute  with  the  fashionable  in  art  and  letters  and 
society,  a  voice  stern,  Puritanic,  yet  tremulous  with 
feeling,  "  Come  ye  out  from  among  them  and  be 
ye  separate,  saith  the  Lord,  and  touch  no  unclean 
thing;  and  I  will  receive  you  and  will  be  a  Father 
to  you,  and  ye  shall  be  to  me  sons  and  daughters, 
saith  the  Lord  Almighty." 

To  be,  in  fact,  sons  and  daughters  to  such  a 
Father  is  worth  some  sacrifice,  is  it  not,  even  of 
things  good  in  themselves ;  worth  some  deprivations 
and  separations  and  limitations,  if  need  be,  if  these 
really  serve  that  end?  If  there  is  no  such  Father, 
holy  and  tender,  and  no  such  actual  possibility  of 
a  real  filial  relation  to  Him,  then  away  with  such 
precautions.  But  if  there  be,  and  one  can  have  the 
infinite  gain  of  drawing  nearer  to  Him  and  His  love, 


A  Way  of  Honor  21 

and  can  the  better  see  Him — as  the  pure  in  heart 
have  been  said  to  do — then  it  is  well  to  rob  our- 
selves of  some  of  the  indulgences  that  come  at  a 
high  price  in  godliness.  For  if  we  will  see  what 
we  choose,  and  hear  what  we  choose,  and  read  what 
we  choose,  and  meditate  on  what  allures  us,  with- 
out discrimination,  then  surely  there  is  a  price  to 
pay,  to  be  taken  out  of  those  most  precious  and 
sensitive  faculties  by  which  we  see  and  apprehend 
and  draw  near  to  God. 

There  is  no  thought,  in  that  utterance  just 
quoted,  of  the  old  Pharisaical  or  monkish  separa- 
tion from  the  world's  sin  and  need  and  sorrows,— 
no  thought  of  pride,  or  conceit  of  sanctity,  or  prud- 
ish seclusion.  It  does  not  prevent  one  going,  as 
the  slum  Sisters  of  the  Salvation  Army  go,  into 
the  very  sink  of  a  city's  slums,  and  living  there  in 
daily  pain  of  eye  and  ear  and  heart,  as  indeed  our 
Lord  lived  among  us.  It  does  not  demand  our  sep- 
aration from  anything  that  it  is  our  business  to 
know  and  understand  and  measure  carefully,  that 
we  may  grapple  with  it  as  with  an  enemy,  and  seek 
to  overthrow  it.  It  will  even  carry  some,  a  few, 
where  only  those  sent  of  God  and  encompassed  by 
Him  can  go  without  corruption  of  soul.  But  it  will 
not  let  one  soul  of  Christ's  followers,  so  exquisitely 
sensitive  to  soil  or  stain,  go  a  foot  into  idle,  curious 
contemplation  of  the  world's  evil.  Each  one  must 


22  A  Way  of  Honor 

decide  how  far  he  has  reason,  in  God's  sight,  to 
venture,  in  seeing,  or  hearing,  or  reading  of  those 
things  which  have  the  old  mysterious  fascination  of 
the  deep  things  of  Satan.  It  depends  somewhat 
on  whether  one's  imagination  is  of  tinder  or  of 
clay. 

The  literature  of  three  millenniums,  as  it  is  gath- 
ered in  any  of  our  large  libraries,  is  a  wide  field  to 
ransack  if  one  cares  to  know  through  what  our 
world  has  come,  and  what  it  has  shaken  off.  But 
one  thing  is  as  sure  as  a  word  of  God,  and  of  a  like 
awful  gravity — that  for  one  beginning  life,  furnish- 
ing that  mysterious  mill,  the  human  brain,  with  the 
grist  of  vivid  thoughts  and  conceptions  and  images 
that  during  a  whole  life-time  will  be  ground  over 
and  over  and  over  again,  entering  into  every  one 
of  its  products,  and  worked  with  them  into  every 
morsel  of  the  bread  of  thought  that  he  must  con- 
tinue to  eat,  whether  he  will  or  no,  as  year  follows 
year, — for  him,  at  least,  a  curious  fancy  to  know 
the  worst  will  presently  sting  and  poison  and 
threaten,  until  it  will  be  God's  mercy  to  him  if  it 
only  torments  him  so  till  death,  and  does  not  win 
him  over  to  a  complaisant  acquiescence  in  its 
evil. 

Self -limitation  here  is  self-preservation.  The 
words,  "  Whatsoever  things  are  pure,  think  on  these 
things,"  is  a  clear,  sweet  call  from  God,  pointing 


A  Way  of  Honor  23 

out  the  paths  of  peace.  And  to  be  wise  toward  that 
which  is  good,  and  simple  toward  that  which  is 
evil,  is  the  way  to  a  development  of  strong  sym- 
metry, beautiful  to  God's  eye,  and  fitted  to  be  of 
the  best  and  rarest  help  to  men. 

It  may  not  be  easy  to  form  such  a  resolution; 
but  form  it !  Hold  to  it  with  a  dogged  obstinacy ! 
And  one  day,  years  hence,  when  this  carefully 
guarded  present  is  in  the  past,  and  you  are  far 
away,  alone,  in  some  place  where  the  devil's  tides 
surge  back  and  forth  about  your  feet,  so  that  a 
man  is  not  expected  to  stand  upright,  you  will  stand 
upright,  with  Jesus  Christ.  This  early  resolution 
will  have  proved  your  strength  and  deliverance. 

It  is  here  that  one  is  compelled  to  define  his  posi- 
tion regarding  the  modern  drama,  and  to  be  old- 
fashioned  for  the  most  part  in  his  attitude  to  the 
theatre.  The  day  has  passed  when  it  is  possible 
to  secure  assent  to  any  general  railing  accusation 
against  the  theatre,  as  though  stage  plays,  some- 
how, must  needs  be  a  source  of  evil,  or  as  though 
the  acting  of  them,  in  which  we  take  so  natural  and 
keen  a  pleasure,  were  in  some  way  objectionable 
and  injurious.  But  the  influence  of  the  modern 
theatre,  as  it  is  for  the  most  part  in  fact,  any  man 
who  hungers  for  God  in  his  soul,  does  well  to  dis- 
trust and  fear. 

There  are  many  good  plays  and  uplifting.     But 


24  A  Way  of  Honor 

if  you  will  take  the  leading  plays  of  the  last  five 
years,  on  both  continents,  which  have  held  the 
boards  in  our  chief  cities,  and  to  which  has  largely 
been  devoted  the  best  talent  of  the  stage,  with  a  few 
conspicuous  exceptions  they  are  degrading  to  any 
sensitive  moral  taste;  and  to  the  eye  of  our  Lord, 
who  knew  His  own  mother's  heart,  and  who  loved 
the  joys  of  the  home  that  He  could  not  have  for 
Himself,  and  loved  Mary  and  Martha  and  Lazarus 
and  their  quiet  refuge  at  Bethany,  they  would  be 
fearful  and  loathsome.  If  it  be  urged  that  they  are 
true  to  the  facts  of  life,  it  may  be  admitted, — as  the 
medical  museum  is  true  to  life.  But  if  it  be  urged 
that  they  incite  to  virtue  by  showing  the  penalties 
of  the  opposite,  this  may  be  freely  denied;  for  in 
that  case  the  habitues  of  the  theatre,  who  fill  its 
front  seats,  would  be  of  a  far  different  type  from 
what  they  are. 

He  is  a  brave  man,  and  a  Christian,  who  is  afraid 
of  such  things,  for  himself  and  others;  for  there 
is  a  poison  in  them  that  in  the  end  infallibly  affects 
the  sight ;  that  deadens  the  nerve  of  the  spiritual  eye. 
As  one  has  lately  said,  "  The  impure  shall  see  all — 
save  God."  Save  God !  We  cannot  face  the  horror 
of  such  blindness.  With  Jesus  and  His  mother,  with 
Paul  and  John,  and  with  all  those  who  would  rather 
see  the  face  of  God  than  any  other  thing  on  earth, 
let  us  think  on  "  whatsoever  things  are  pure." 


A  Way  of  Honor  25 


IV 


We  cannot  now  consider  further  the  lessons  of 
this  verse.  Many  will  be  found  to  tell  you,  in  the 
club  or  on  the  street,  that  its  ideas  are  narrow  and 
out-of-date.  Let  us  be  wise  enough  to  oppose  to  this 
ever-whispering  voice  of  the  Tempter  the  high  call 
of  Jesus,  and  this  clean,  noble  appeal  of  Paul.  Live 
in  continual  sight  not  only  of  Jesus  Christ,  but  of 
the  human  lives  that  He  has  touched,  so  that  they 
exalt  humanity.  Form  the  habit  of  reading  those 
modern  biographies  that  give  us  just  and  vivid  pic- 
tures of  these  men,  and  that  stir  the  soul  like  a 
trumpet  call.  Such  biographies,  I  mean,  as  those 
of  General  Lee  and  General  Armstrong,  of  Pro- 
fessor Le  Conte  and  W.  H.  Baldwin;  of  Charles 
Kingsley,  of  Drummond,  and  Gladstone,  and 
Phillips  Brooks,  and  Miss  Willard,  and  many  an- 
other,— knightly  souls,  pure  and  of  a  high  honor, 
that  help  us  to  understand  what  the  religion  of 
Christ  can  do  for  one  to  make  life  lovely  and  of 
good  report.  Think  on  these  things.  For  though 
evil  fills  our  ears,  and  surrounds  us  like  a  poisonous 
miasma,  we  are  citizens  of  another  country,  whose 
gates  we  hope  one  day  to  enter.  And  through  those 
gates  in  no  wise  passes  anything  unclean,  or  he 
that  maketh  an  abomination  and  a  lie. 


II 

A  Good  Fight 

"  Fight  the  good  fight  of  the  faith"— \  TIM.  6:12. 

A  WONDERFUL  great  fight  it  is!  No  two 
find  it  alike.  Yet  can  you  tell  me  how  a 
true  man  can  keep  out  of  it!  \ 

Here  is  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  speaking,  writing 
to  his  father :  "  I  am  lonely  and  sick  and  out  of 
heart.  Well,  I  still  hope;  I  still  believe;  I  still  see 
the  good  in  the  inch  and  cling  to  it."  And  years 
later  he  writes :  "  The  battle  goes  on — ill  or  well 
is  a  trifle,  so  as  it  goes.  I  was  made  for  a  contest, 
and  the  Powers  have  so  willed  that  my  battle-field 
should  be  this  dingy  inglorious  one  of  the  bed  and 
the  physic  bottle." 

Who  will  doubt  that  his  life  was  a  battle-field, 
indeed,  and  that  he  more  and  more  saw  his  place 
in  the  good  fight? 

Here  is  a  fellow  Scotsman,  speaking  from  the 
heart  of  Africa,  Livingstone;  an  old  man,  broken 
with  sickness,  racked  with  pain,  lonely  with  the 

26 


A  Good  Fight  27 

great  loneliness  of  one  who  had  not  heard  from 
home  for  years,  yet  still  holding  grimly  to  his  task 
and  refusing  to  come  home  till  it  was  finished.  He 
writes  from  his  dull  hut  in  Manyuema :  "  I  have  an 
intense  and  sore  longing  to  finish  and  retire,  and 
trust  that  the  Almighty  may  permit  me  to  go  home. 
Yet  if  I  fall,  I  will  do  so  doing  my  duty,  like  one 
of  his  stout-hearted  servants."  And  just  before  he 
fell  for  the  last  time,  still  among  those  endless  for- 
ests, he  wrote :  "  Nothing  earthly  will  make  me  give 
up  my  work  in  despair.  Yet  so  many  obstacles 
have  arisen.  Let  not  Satan  prevail  over  me,  O  my 
good  Lord  Jesus."  A  braver  fight  was  never 
fought  by  human  soul. 

In  a  far  different  field,  consider  what  sort  of  life 
he  led  who  was  our  country's  leader  through  the 
dark  days  of  the  great  war — Abraham  Lincoln.  A 
life  of  unremitting  anxiety,  of  stern,  strong  patience 
under  endless  provocation,  of  struggle  with  almost 
unendurable  odds,  that  drove  him  more  and  more 
to  reverent  dependence  upon  God,  but  that,  even 
so,  graved  in  his  face  as  with  a  chisel  those  deep 
lines  that  told  how  sore  the  fight  had  been. 

I  think  of  a  woman,  Josephine  Butler,  who  for 
years  was  the  champion  of  those  girls  and  women 
of  England  who  were  without  a  helper.  She  once 
wrote  to  Mrs.  Booth  pathetically,  explaining  why 
her  face  was  not  as  joyful  as  she  wished  it.  In 


28  A  Good  Fight 

the  sight  of  the  terrible  wrongs  against  which  she 
fought,  her  earlier  life,  she  said,  was  full  of  sor- 
row— indeed,  of  tragedy.  "  I  have  gone  through 
seas  of  trouble  and  strange  suffering.  I  am  hap- 
pier as  I  get  older.  The  joy  which  God  gives  me 
overwhelms  even  the  awful  memories  of  the  past. 
He  so  thoroughly  broke  my  heart  with  despair,  that 
I  gave  up  and  left  the  whole  matter  to  Him."  Do 
you  realize  how  many  of  the  world's  helpers  are 
still  fighting  in  so  bitter  a  contest  even  till  to- 
day? 

Or,  to  cross  the  seas  again,  I  think  of  my  old 
friend  and  colleague,  Pastor  Meng,  of  Paotingfu: 
who,  when  the  cruel  days  came  of  the  Boxer  up- 
rising, utterly  refused  to  flee  when  he  could  and 
leave  the  three  foreign  teachers  alone;  and  whom 
they  tormented  through  one  summer  night,  before 
they  slew  him,  hoping  to  make  him  betray  his  as- 
sociates or  blaspheme  his  Leader;  who  stood  un- 
daunted, unfaltering,  till  the  morning  came  and 
death  with  it,  because  he,  too,  like  Paul,  had 
one  with  him  who  comforted  him  and  held  him 
faithful. 

Or  right  here  at  home  are  mothers,  who  have 
wrestled  with  God  for  their  children,  that  they 
might  be  true  men  and  true  women,  as  God  reckons 
true;  who  have  spent  some  moments  on  their  knees 
daily  for  more  years  now  than  they  can  remember, 


A  Good  Fight  29 

praying  that  their  boys  might  live  to  war  a  good 
warfare,  and  that  their  girls  might  be  fair  and 
honorable  in  His  sight;  never  letting  go,  never 
losing  heart,  never  relaxing  in  the  hope  and  minis- 
try of  life.  Oh,  it  has  been  a  long  fight,  and  often 
weary,  and  it  is  not,  over  yet,  and  will  not  be  until 
the  mother's  heart  has  quite  let  go  of  earth!  No 
biography  will  ever  mention  it,  no  newspaper  will 
ever  speak  words  of  public  praise  concerning  it, 
but  in  the  great  campaign  surely  God  has  given 
them  an  honorable  post. 

And  so  we  might  go  on  through  all  this  hour, 
calling  up  men  and  women  from  every  walk  in 
life,  from  the  endless  roll  of  witnesses  to  the  fact 
that  life  at  its  best  is  a  fight.  At  its  noblest,  it  is 
a  struggle.  Not  at  its  poorest  and  meanest.  One 
may  drift,  or  idle,  or  sing  one's  care-free  way  along 
any  of  the  innumerable  avenues  that  lead  to  failure 
and  the  ultimate  disappointment.  But  if  we  are 
going  anywhere  that  is  worth  the  going,  we  have 
need  to  take  a  new  grip  on  ourselves  day  by  day, 
to  hold  ourselves  steadily  in  the  patience  of  effort 
and  self-restraint. 

But  what  is  the  use  of  saying  these  things,  that 
are  as  familiar  to  us  as  any  alphabet  of  life?  Do 
we  not  all  believe  them  and  accept  them  as  a 
matter  of  course?  Does  not  our  presence  here  this 
morning  show  that  we  are  all  of  one  mind  in  this 


30  A  Good  Fight 

matter,  and  that  each  of  us  in  his  own  way  is  trying 
to  hold  his  own  in  the  battle? 

No!  that  does  not  follow.  When  we  think  of 
it  we  know  that  it  is  not  so.  We  wish  it  were 
true.  It  is  not  true!  To  think  so  would  be  to 
resemble  those  who  insisted  on  crying  peace,  peace, 
when  swords  were  out  and  actually  flashing  in  their 
streets.  In  our  quiet  company  this  morning  is  gath- 
ered every  shade  of  human  need  and  weakness  in 
relation  to  this  good  fight,  that  demands  strength 
and  courage  first  of  all.  Some  are  consciously 
strong  and  overcoming.  But  some  wonder  if  they 
still  have  a  place  in  the  ranks.  Some  have  actually 
fallen  out.  Some  simply  hang  about  the  skirts  of 
the  army  of  the  Lord,  non-combatants,  looking  on. 
Some,  even  among  boys  and  girls  full  of  good  met- 
tle, of  the  sort  that  may  make  and  yet  will  make 
true  soldiers,  are  actually  ashamed  to  be  counted 
as  in  the  fight  at  all,  and  are  rather  proud  of  show- 
ing their  independence  by  standing  outside  alto- 
gether. And  only  God  knows  how  many  who  keep 
up  a  brave  front  are  distressed  at  heart,  as  if  they 
already  saw  themselves  defeated. 

So  it  is  not  a  mere  formal  thing  to  ask  ourselves 
carefully  about  this  fight  again — what  it  is,  and 
how  one  plays  his  part  in  it,  and  what  hope  there 
is  of  persevering  to  the  end.  It  is  very  familiar 
ground,  but  let  us  go  over  it  again  this  morning, 


A  Good  Fight  31 

and  see  if  the  divine  light  does  not  fall  on  it  at 
a  new  angle,  and  illuminate  life's  problems  anew  for 
us  this  day. 

And  first  let  us  take  the  words  at  their  face 
value,  for  what  Paul  meant  by  them  when  he 
begged  this  young  man  to  fight  the  good  fight.  The 
word  used  is  not  the  one  for  battle,  or  for  military 
service:  its  associations  are  not  those  of  the  camp 
or  legion.  It  belongs  to  the  athletic  field,  to  the 
great  games  of  the  stadium,  and  to  them  alone. 
Our  athletics,  even  our  college  athletics,  are  play, 
compared  to  those  that  Paul  had  been  familiar  with 
ever  since  his  boyhood.  Every  Greek  city  had  its 
stadium  and  its  great  contests,  and  the  love  of  these 
national  games  was  far  more  a  passion  with  the 
Greeks,  as  has  been  said,  than  a  mere  amusement. 
The  young  men  entered  for  them  as  a  patriot  en- 
ters his  country's  army.  The  training  and  diet  and 
discipline  were  of  the  strictest.  No  man  could  enter 
for  an  event  without  taking  oath  that  he  had  been 
ten  months  in  training,  and  the  athletic  training- 
grounds  of  the  city  were  as  much  a  place  of  popular 
resort  as  the  stadium  itself.  It  was  not  a  beggarly 
few  they  would  get  upon  the  bleachers  in  the  days 
before  one  of  the  great  games ;  the  whole  city  popu- 
lation were  eagerly  alive  and  interested  in  the  com- 
ing events.  And  so  it  is  that  Paul's  writing  is 
filled  with  allusions  to  various  features  of  the  games 


32  A  Good  Fight 

— to  their  rules,  to  their  training,  and  to  their  prizes. 
But  here  he  speaks  of  the  greatest  event  of  all — 
the  good  contest — the  strife  above  all  others  in  its 
intensity  and  in  its  issues. 

Contest,  he  says,  in  the  great  contest.  Play  the 
game,  he  says,  in  the  greatest  game  of  all.  It  was 
a  life-and-death  affair  with  him.  Life  was  often 
involved  in  those  Grecian  and  Roman  contests  of 
the  amphitheatre.  And  it  was  to  a  lifelong  struggle 
that  he  called  Timothy;  a  struggle  such  that  the 
best  word  for  it,  after  all,  was  "  the  fight."  So  we 
have  the  appeal :  "  Fight  the  good  fight."  It  was  the 
appeal  to  the  athlete — to  the  man  who  loves  the 
intense,  clean,  manly  struggle  of  the  arena,  for 
clean,  high  ends  of  honor,  not  for  money  or  pro- 
fessional's reward;  and  to  the  man  who  would  pay 
the  price  of  the  rigorous  training  and  discipline  re- 
quired, without  whining  and  without  complaint. 
Altogether  it  is  a  noble,  manly  appeal  to  the  best 
and  strongest  in  us ;  an  appeal  of  a  sort  that  our  own 
best  athletics  help  us  to  understand. 

But  Paul  did  not  lose  himself  in  sentiment,  or 
hide  his  meaning  behind  metaphors.  The  good  fight 
of  which  he  spoke  was  something  vividly  clear  be- 
fore him,  and  he  did  not  leave  his  meaning  in  the 
vague,  polite  obscurity  of  one  who  does  not  dare 
speak  out  what  is  in  his  mind.  He  comes  out  clearly 
in  the  open,  and  speaks  as  a  man  speaks  to  men 


A  Good  Fight  33 

when  the  utmost  is  at  stake.  He  would  have  no 
man  in  doubt  as  to  the  terms  of  this  contest. 

He  makes  it  shining  clear  that  it  means  loyalty  to 
the  leadership  of  Jesus  Christ.  That  loyalty  will 
plunge  a  man  headlong  into  a  fight,  from  the  first 
day — and  such  loyalty  will  keep  him  at  the  centre 
of  the  world's  great  fight  until  the  end.  If  Jesus 
Christ  had  come  into  the  world  to  preach  a  gospel 
like  the  Buddhist's,  of  the  cessation  of  effort  and 
the  mortifying  of  desire  till  both  die  out  together, 
then  this  great  contest  would  have  been  another 
thing.  But  Jesus  came  to  kindle  desire  and  in- 
tensify effort,  to  raise  them  both  to  their  highest 
power,  and  through  them  to  save  the  world.  He  put 
himself  at  the  heart  of  the  struggle.  He  threw 
himself,  like  a  forlorn  hope,  against  the  world's 
evil,  and  went  down  before  it,  in  those  days  of 
which  we  read  in  the  gospels. 

But  His  own  sacrifice  was  not  the  end  of  the 
fight,  but  the  beginning.  He  came  to  destroy  the 
works  of  the  devil,  and  they  shall  be  destroyed. 
But  how  many  of  the  world's  choicest  lives  shall 
be  used  in  the  contest,  before  it  is  at  an  end?  Like 
Livingstone,  and  Mrs.  Butler,  and  Pastor  Meng, 
and  the  innumerable  fellowship  of  those  who  give 
themselves  to  the  struggle  for  the  sake  of  others 
against  the  ever-changing  forms  of  evil.  If  you  or 
I  are  halfway  in  touch  with  Jesus  Christ  we  shall 


34  A  Good  Fight 

be  involved  in  the  greatest  struggle  the  world  has 
ever  witnessed.  A  contest  for  athletes,  indeed,  in 
which  each  man  must  give  account  of  himself. 

For  here  is  the  other  phase  of  the  good  fight. 
To  be  loyal  to  Jesus  Christ  is  to  be  brought  into 
an  undying  struggle  with  ourselves.  For  our  own 
souls  are  beset  with  adversaries.  As  Paul  was 
saying  to  Timothy,  when  he  used  these  words,  even 
a  very  innocent  and  natural  desire — the  desire  to  be 
rich — may  lead  a  man  into  a  temptation  and  a  snare 
and  many  foolish  and  hurtful  lusts,  such  as  drown 
men  in  destruction  and  perdition,  and  pierce  them 
through  with  many  sorrows.  And  if  he  honestly 
tries,  obeying  his  Leader,  to  follow  after  righteous- 
ness, godliness,  faith,  love,  patience,  meekness,  has 
he  not  a  contest  on  his  hands  ?  Does  it  come  easily 
to  play  the  game  when  it  makes  such  demands  on 
our  daily  living  as  meekness,  and  love,  and  patience  ? 
But  is  there  any  manlier  contest  worth  engaging  in 
in  life,  than  a  good  fight  against  those  things  that 
drown  the  soul? 

It  is  a  help  just  here  to  remember  that  the  "  good 
fight "  means  always  and  everywhere  not  only  a 
fight  for  certain  things,  but  one  under  certain  terms 
and  conditions  of  leadership  and  fellowship  and 
method.  It  does  not  mean  the  mere  "  fight  for 
character,"  as  we  sometimes  think,  but  a  fight  for 
character  under  these  terms  of  leadership  that  as- 


A  Good  Fight  35 

sure  success.  Millions  of  men,  like  the  old  iron- 
hearted  Stoics,  have  made  their  fight  for  character 
under  conditions  that  left  their  life  bare  and  hard 
and  cheerless  as  a  desert  without  the  sun.  This 
good  fight  takes  its  color  and  attractive  quality  from 
its  inseparable  associations. 

Surely  we  can  understand  this.  Here  is  a  man 
who  has  played  college  football  for  three  years,  and 
really  loves  the  game — enjoys  it  for  its  excitement 
and  intensity,  for  its  own  sake.  A  man  comes  to 
him  after  his  graduation  and  says  to  him :  "  See 
here;  will  you  join  a  football  team  I  am  getting  up 
for  next  season's  play?"  "Well,  I  don't  know; 
who  are  the  other  men  in  it  ?  "  "  Oh,  well ;  they 
are  all  star  players ;  they  are  not  exactly  your  kind, 
not  all  of  them  are  college  men,  but  they  know  the 
game  all  right."  "  But  who  is  the  captain  ?  "  "  Oh ! 
he  is  a  man  you  don't  know,  McGuire  of  Chicago; 
he  is  a  bit  of  a  slugger,  but  he  can  just  handle  a 
team;  if  you  like  football  you  can't  do  better  than 
join  us."  But  the  man  doesn't  join — wouldn't  join 
for  a  big  salary.  Why?  It  is  the  same  game. 
Yes!  But  the  same  game  with  another  team,  and 
another  captain,  and  under  a  totally  different  at- 
mosphere, becomes  another  game  altogether,  and 
your  true  athlete  wouldn't  touch  it  with  a  ten-foot 
pole. 

And  so  with  the  fight  for  character!    It  may  be 


36  A  Good  Fight 

a  very  bleak  and  disheartening  affair.  But  the 
good  fight  is  the  one  under  the  inextinguishable 
hope  and  cheer  of  the  good  Leader,  Jesus  Christ, 
and  the  fellowship  is  that  of  the  true  and  knightly 
souls  that  would  be  faithful  to  Him,  and  the  rules 
and  training  of  it  are  those  of  the  loved  family  of 
God's  own.  We  are  not  out  for  our  own  hand, 
fighting  the  battle  at  our  own  charges;  to  be  dis- 
appointed, or  discouraged,  or  fairly  disheartened, 
just  as  the  day's  fortune  changes.  We  are  men  in 
touch  with  the  Captain  of  our  Salvation;  called  by 
Him,  inspired  by  Him,  trusted  by  Him,  loved  by 
Him.  How  can  we  play  Him  false,  however  the  tide 
of  battle  may  be  going! 

You  know  the  fiery  enthusiasm  of  the  men  in 
the  army  of  Garibaldi,  the  Italian  patriot,  how  the 
very  sight  of  his  red-shirted  figure  was  enough  to 
make  them  forget  fear.  You  remember  how  the 
Chinese,  in  that  ever-victorious  army  of  General 
Gordon's,  would  follow  in  the  face  of  any  enemy, 
if  only  he  were  leading,  unarmed  though  he  was. 
And  for  us  in  the  good  fight,  all  our  hope  of  a 
fearless  success  is  in  this,  that  we  are  in  personal 
association  with  Him  who  has  called  us  to  be  His 
soldiers.  There  is  where  the  sunlight  and  the  hope 
break  in,  even  on  a  half -beaten  man,  because  He 
simply  will  not  let  us  go  down  if  we  turn  to  Him. 
And  the  inspiration  to  go  on  is  coming  into  our 


A  Good  Fight  37 

lives,  ever  new  and  fresh,  day  by  day,  year  by  year, 
if  we  keep  Him  in  sight. 

But  here  we  stop  a  moment  to  think  of  beaten 
men,  who  have  made  a  slip  or  a  fall,  who  have  been 
beaten  down  for  a  day  or  a  week,  and  who,  heavy- 
hearted,  have  dropped  out  of  the  contest.  If  we 
are  not  men  enough  to  fight  the  fight  successfully, 
ought  we  not  to  give  it  up?  If  we  are  not  gritty 
enough  to  play  the  game,  ought  we  not  to  drop  out  ? 
If  a  man  tries  to  follow  the  Leader,  and  fails,  must 
he  not  confess  himself  beaten  and  withdraw? 

Oh,  that  we  might  hear  the  answer,  trumpet- 
tongued,  from  heaven,  the  fervent  answer,  "  No !  " 
The  very  hero  in  this  fight  is  the  man  who  per- 
severes in  the  face  of  failure — who  cannot  be  scared 
or  shaken  off  by  his  own  mishaps.  Who  comes  back 
again.  God  knows,  the  hero  is  not  the  man  who 
never  slips  or  proves  unfaithful,  but  he  who  rises 
again  and  again,  penitent  and  humbled,  but  indom- 
itable: who  will  run  the  course  and  play  the  game, 
though  he  comes  late  limping  in,  a  sorry  figure.  He 
is  the  hero  of  the  good  fight.  For  it  is  a  life  strug- 
gle— not  one  of  a  week  or  month.  In  a  hundred- 
yard  dash,  if  a  man  slips,  his  chance  is  gone.  But 
this  event  is  like  a  long  Marathon — not  of  hours 
but  of  days — where  slips  and  falls  may  come  more 
than  once  or  twice,  where  a  man  may  be  clean 
winded  and  yet  recover,  where  the  only  fatal  blunder 


38  A  Good  Fight 

is  to  drop  out  of  the  course  altogether.  But  we 
do  not  love  a  quitter,  and  we  are  not  of  those  who 
throw  the  whole  matter  up  because  we  have  made  a 
poor  showing  on  the  first  lap  or  the  twentieth. 

And  all  the  more  because  we  are  sure  of  our 
Master's  wish  in  this  particular,  even  though  we 
may  have  treated  Him  very  shabbily.  You  remem- 
ber how  Peter  asked  Him  once  whether  he,  Peter, 
ought  to  forgive  a  man  as  many  as  seven  times; 
and  what  Jesus  answered,  that  up  to  seventy  times 
he  must  forgive  if  he  would  be  like  God.  The  for- 
giveness for  our  blunders  and  our  failures  is  inex- 
haustible, and  God's  mercy  will  not  give  out  if  we 
live  on  for  seventy  years,  fighting  the  good  fight  as 
we  do  with  many  a  setback,  if  only  we  stand  up  to 
the  contest  till  the  end.  Let  go  we  cannot;  drink 
deep  of  God's  mercy  to  a  poor  fighting-man,  we 
can;  all  the  more  that  out  of  poor  fighting-men  He 
has  often  made  His  heroes. 

We  do  not  think  much  upon  the  prize — upon  the 
reward.  Perhaps  it  is  as  well  we  should  not.  Those 
Greek  warriors  never  received  a  penny  for  their 
long  training,  only  the  wreath  of  bay,  or  of  the 
unfading  pine  that  still  grows  about  the  Corinthian 
isthmus.  What  the  incorruptible  crown  may  be,  of 
which  Paul  spoke,  we  cannot  guess.  But  we  are 
sure  that  God  calls  no  man  to  a  lifetime  in  the 
great  contest  without  a  heart-satisfying  end,  though 


A  Good  Fight  39 

the  end  is  not  in  sight.  And  along  the  way,  what 
richness  of  reward,  in  the  gratitude  of  our  own 
hearts  for  such  a  calling,  in  the  thanks  of  weak 
and  discouraged  souls  we  may  have  helped,  in  the 
sunlight  of  our  Lord's  approval.  Is  there  any  one 
here  who  is  ashamed  or  afraid  of  entering  on  such 
a  fight,  or  who  would  ridicule  or  hold  back  him 
who  does  enlist? 

That   oft-quoted    school   poem   of    Henry  New- 
bolt's  fairly  sums  up  what  we  have  been  saying : 

*  "  There's  a  moment's  hush  on  the  crowded  field, 

Six  to  make  and  the  game  to  win: 
A  stubborn  foe  and  a  cruel  fight, 

Five  minutes  to  play  and  one's  strength  all  in. 
And  it's  not  for  the  sake  of  the  field's  applause, 

Or  the  selfish  hope  of  a  season's  fame, 
But  his  captain's  hand  on  his  shoulder  smote 

'  Play  up!  play  up!  and  play  the  game! ' 

The  sand  of  the  desert  is  sodden  red 

Red  with  the  wreck  of  a  square  that  broke 
The  gatling's  jammed  and  the  colonel  dead, 

And  the  regiment  blind  with  dust  and  smoke. 
The  river  of  death  has  brimmed  his  banks, 

And  England's  far,  and  Honor's  a  name, 
But  the  voice  of  a  schoolboy  rallies  the  ranks, 

'  Play  up!  play  up!  and  play  the  game! ' 

This  is  the  word  that  year  by  year 

While  in'her  place  the  school  is  set 
Every  one  of  her  sons  must  hear, 

And  none  that  hears  it  dare  forget. 

*  First  verse  altered. 


40  A  Good  Fight 

This  they  all  with  a  joyful  mind 

Bear  through  life  like  a  torch  in  flame, 
And  falling  fling  to  the  next  behind, 
'  Play  up!  play  up!  and  play  the  game! '  " 

In  the  supreme  game  of  life,  the  great  contest  of 
a  man's  soul,  the  good  fight,  we  hear  such  a  call 
from  our  Leader,  and  nerve  ourselves  again  to  an- 
swer with  our  best. 


Ill 

The  Man  Born  Blind 

JOHN  ix. 

IT  was  an  autumn  day  in  Jerusalem.  Jesus  and 
His  disciples  were  picking  their  way  along  the 
narrow  street,  a  little  straggling  company  of 
twos  and  threes.  Many  eyes  were  watching  them, 
and  people  pointed  at  them  as  they  passed.  It  was 
a  Sabbath  morning,  but  there  was  little  of  the  Sab- 
bath peace  in  it  for  that  company,  which  had  been 
a  target  for  bitter  feeling  for  days  preceding.  They 
must  have  moved  like  men  on  the  edge  of  a  volcano. 
Jesus,  inside  those  old  city  walls,  was  like  a  man 
caged  among  fierce  animals,  having  need  to  walk 
warily  lest  they  be  at  His  throat.  Enemies  were 
all  about  Him.  He  was  protected,  in  a  way,  by 
the  friendship  of  the  common  people.  The  ruling 
classes  said  that  He  was  a  deceiver,  a  blasphemer, 
a  man  possessed  of  the  devil;  they  had  given  orders 
for  His  arrest.  But  still  no  man  laid  hands  on 
Him;  the  time  was  not  ripe.  They  watched  Him 
viciously;  he  was  the  centre  of  animated  and  bitter 

41 


42  The  Man  Born  Blind 

discussion;  but  still  He  moved  among  them  calmly 
and  fearlessly,  though  only  a  day  or  two  before 
they  had  taken  up  stones  to  stone  Him.  All  His 
friends  must  have  recognized  that  it  would  be  well 
for  Him  to  flee  the  city  while  He  could,  and  leave 
its  dangerous  prisoning  walls  far  behind.  In  Gali- 
lee He  could  still  be  measurably  safe,  but  Jerusa- 
lem was  a  very  trap  set  for  His  destruction. 

It  was  in  such  an  atmosphere  of  danger  that  He 
and  His  friends  were  passing  along  the  street  that 
Sabbath  morning.  So  they  came  to  the  spot  where, 
in  some  niche  or  doorway  or  street-opening,  a  blind 
beggar  sat.  Blind  beggars  were  too  common  to 
excite  remark.  But  one  of  the  disciples  happened 
to  ask,  out  of  curiosity,  what  was  the  cause  of  his 
misfortune;  because  this  man  had  never  even  seen 
the  world  in  which  he  lived — he  had  been  born 
blind.  Of  course  they  thought  it  was  a  punish- 
ment for  sin;  no  man  could  be  so  afflicted  as  that, 
except  for  cause.  Was  it  his  own  sin,  with  which — 
as  the  Pharisees  were  saying  a  few  hours  later — 
he  had  come  into  the  world  already  stained  and 
doomed,  or  was  his  trouble  a  judgment  on  his  fa- 
ther's sin,  as  even  to-day  so  often  is  the  case? 

They  might  have  discussed  the  question  as  they 
went  on  down  the  street,  but  Jesus  stopped  in  front 
of  the  beggar,  and  made  His  answer  there :  an  an- 
swer so  warmly  given  that  it  has  lived  for  men  to 


The  Man  Born  Blind  43 

hear  these  nineteen  centuries.  "  The  blindness  was 
not  a  punishment  at  all,  either  for  sin  of  his  own 
or  his  parents;  it  was  for  the  glory  of  God,  he  suf- 
fering that  he  might  shew  forth  God's  works." 

This  was  a  strange  view  of  human  suffering. 
The  heavens  show  forth  the  glory  of  God.  The 
great  achievements  of  men,  and  their  high  virtues, 
these  bear  witness  to  His  character.  But  what  can 
sickness  or  crippling  affliction  do  but  witness  to  the 
blight  of  sin,  and  the  power  of  man's  enemy? 

Jesus  evidently  thought  that  it  might  be  as  elo- 
quent of  God  as  great  deeds  and  high  position. 
And  unnumbered  men  and  women  since  have  borne 
their  blindness,  or  pain,  or  infirmity  the  more  pa- 
tiently and  nobly  because  they  hoped  that  they,  too, 
might  by  their  very  loss  and  sorrow  show  forth 
the  praise  of  their  Heavenly  Father.  It  would  be 
worth  being  patient  a  few  years,  if  one  might  so 
prove  worthy  of  the  singular  but  painful  trust  God 
had  allotted  him,  and  fill  faithfully  an  unwelcome 
and  difficult  position. 

We  do  not  know  what  Jesus  said  to  the  beggar. 
Something  passed  between  them  that  made  the 
young  man — for  it  was  a  young  man — come  to  His 
feet  in  quivering  expectancy.  The  chance  of  seeing 
the  great  sunlit  world,  on  which  he  had  never 
looked,  had  suddenly  dawned  upon  his  life-long 
blindness.  And  already  his  endless  dark  had  be- 


44  The  Man  Born  Blind 

come  a  prison-house,  from  which  he  panted  to  es- 
cape— from  which  this  strange  man,  Jesus,  should 
help  him  to  be  free. 

Jesus  spat  on  the  ground  and  made  clay,  and 
anointed  the  man's  eyes.  And  though  the  man  had 
no  eyes  to  see,  and  had  no  glimpse  of  the  face  of 
Jesus,  yet  if  ever  gentleness  and  love  were  in  a 
human  touch  he  felt  it  then,  as  Jesus  pressed  the 
sightless  eyeballs;  and  the  man's  heart  understood 
and  answered,  as  we  shall  see  later.  Then  he  hur- 
ried away  at  Jesus'  bidding,  as  fast  as  his  stick 
could  guide  his  footsteps,  to  the  pool  of  Siloam, 
and  down  the  long  stair  of  rock-hewn  steps  that  led 
to  its  waters.  And  there  he  washed,  and  looked  up 
for  the  first  time  to  the  sky,  and  for  the  first  time 
out  upon  the  pleasant  world. 

He  came  back  into  the  city  another  man,  not 
pathetically  slow  and  feeble,  sounding  his  perilous 
way  before  him  with  his  staff,  but  with  elastic,  inde- 
pendent footsteps,  a  man  among  his  equals. 
Straight  back  he  came  to  his  old  haunts,  to  pro- 
claim the  wonder  and  to  receive  congratulations. 
He  was  as  well  known  in  the  city  as  is  the  blind 
man  who  sits  reading  on  the  sidewalk  in  Los  An- 
geles— all  were  familiar  with  his  face.  Yet  as  he 
came  back  to  his  old  corner,  men  said  to  one  an- 
other, "  Who  is  this  coming  that  looks  like  the  blind 
beggar  ?  Surely  it  can't  be  the  same  man !  " 


The  Man  Born  Blind  45 

Others  said,  "  It  is  the  very  man  himself,  you 
can  tell  him  by  his  clothes  and  his  beggar's  pouch." 

But  some  would  not  believe  it,  insisting  that  it 
was  only  a  resemblance.  And  so  they  gathered 
about  him  and  argued  his  identity  until  he  put  argu- 
ment out  of  the  question  by  his  insistence  that  he 
was  the  very  man.  They  said,  therefore,  unto  him  : 
"  How  then  were  thine  eyes  opened  ?  "  He  an- 
swered, "  The  man  that  is  called  Jesus  made  clay 
and  anointed  them,  and  said,  '  Go  to  Siloam  and 
wash.'  So  I  went  away,  and  washed,  and  I  re- 
ceived sight."  And  they  said  unto  him,  "  Where 
is  he?  "  He  said,  "  I  know  not." 

They  stared  at  him  open-mouthed.  The  thing 
was  fairly  impossible,  and  yet  they  could  not  get 
away  from  it.  Here  was  the  beggar-man  looking 
at  them.  They  must  have  asked  him  again  and 
again  to  repeat  the  astounding  story,  that  was  so 
provokingly  simple,  before  the  truth  really  dawned 
upon  them. 

Then  what  was  to  be  done!  A  miracle  such  as 
this  ought  to  be  looked  into  by  the  authorities.  If 
Jesus  had  really  done  this  thing,  perhaps  the  Phari- 
sees would  believe  on  Him !  Or  perhaps  some  ill- 
disposed  persons  in  the  crowd  sought  a  chance  to 
embroil  Jesus  still  further  with  the  officers.  So  to- 
gether they  set  off  for  the  place  where  some  repre- 
sentative gathering  of  the  Pharisees,  or  committee 


46  The  Man  Born  Blind 

of  the  Sanhedrin,  was  known  to  be  in  session. 
Once  there,  the  story  was  soon  told,  and  the  beggar 
pushed  into  the  forefront,  like  a  culprit  before  the 
court  for  sentence.  And,  indeed,  the  Pharisees 
must  have  looked  on  him  like  an  offender.  Inno- 
cent as  he  was,  he  had  yet  put  them  in  an  exceed- 
ingly awkward  position,  and  how  they  were  to  deal 
with  him  was  a  puzzle,  especially  if  he  should  prove 
intractable  or  obstinate. 

So  they  asked  him  first  to  tell  exactly  how  it 
happened — that  might  give  some  clue.  But  the  man 
only  said,  "  He  put  clay  on  my  eyes,  and  I  washed, 
and  I  see !  " 

Some  of  the  Pharisees  said  at  once,  "  That  settles 
the  matter.  This  man  Jesus  is  self-declared  a  Sab- 
bath-breaker and  despiser  of  the  law.  He  made 
clay,  which  is  flatly  forbidden  on  the  Sabbath,  and 
he  took  the  clay  and  rubbed  it  on  the  man's  eyes, 
which  is  sheer  lawlessness.  A  man  who  breaks  the 
law  is  a  bad  man,  whether  he  works  cures  or  not. 
This  beggar  may  have  been  healed,  but  it  is  the 
devil's  work." 

But  others  of  the  Pharisees — possibly  with  Nico- 
demus  as  spokesman — insisted  just  as  strongly  that 
a  sinner  would  not  and  could  not  work  such  a  mira- 
cle; and  Jesus  was,  therefore,  evidently  of  God. 
The  man's  judges  were  at  odds  among  themselves. 
Some  of  them  asked  the  beggar,  as  though  that 


The  Man  Born  Blind  47 

would  throw  any  light  on  the  situation,  "  What  do 
you  say  of  him,  in  that  he  opened  your  eyes  ?  " 
He  said  unhesitatingly,  "  He  is  a  prophet." 

Meantime  there  were  those  among  them  who 
solved  the  difficulty  by  denying  it.  "  The  whole 
thing  is  a  swindle,"  they  said.  "  This  man  never 
was  blind.  These  disciples  of  Jesus  are  palming 
off  an  impostor;  the  man  certainly  resembles  the 
blind  beggar,  but  it  is  not  he.  Send  for  the  real 
beggar's  father  and  mother!  They  can  tell,  and 
then  we  shall  know  the  truth."  So  some  petty  un- 
derling went  off  on  a  run  for  the  man's  parents, 
and  the  crowd  waited  to  see  the  end.  They  came 
back,  an  old,  humble  couple,  timid  and  frightened, 
and  bowed  before  the  court. 

"  You  see  that  man ;  is  he  your  son,  that  you  say 
was  born  blind?  If  so,  how  does  it  come  that  he 
is  able  to  see  ?  " 

"  Yes,  he  is  our  son ;  we  are  sure  of  that,  and 
that  he  was  born  blind.  But  how  he  comes  to  see,  or 
who  healed  him,  we  don't  know.  Ask  him;  he  is 
old  enough;  he  can  tell  the  facts."  One  may  be 
sure  that  they  had  already  heard  the  whole  story 
again  and  again.  But  they  were  poor  timid  crea- 
tures, terrified  of  the  Pharisees,  and  were  evidently 
willing  that  their  son  should  get  himself  out  of 
trouble  in  his  own  way.  So  they  said,  "  Ask  him." 

The  attendants  then  brought  him  forward  again, 


48  The  Man  Born  Blind 

in  place  of  his  parents.  The  Pharisees  would  try 
browbeating  him.  He  was  a  common  fellow,  a 
beggar,  surely  they  could  make  him  see  the  thing 
as  they  saw  it,  and  stop  his  mouth. 

"  Give  glory  to  God,"  they  said,  "  we  know  this 
man  Jesus,  and  he  is  a  sinner." 

But  the  beggar  was  of  different  stuff  from  his 
parents — a  sturdy  man,  a  brave  man;  simple,  but 
unafraid;  of  the  stuff  of  Luther  and  John  Hamp- 
den,  and  of  our  Puritan  forebears.  He  merely  said, 
"  I  don't  know  whether  he  is  a  sinner;  but  one 
thing  I  do  know,  that  whereas  I  was  blind,  now  I 
see." 

Both  sides  were  losing  their  temper  now.  They 
began  to  badger  him.  "What  did  he  do  to  you? 
How  did  he  open  your  eyes  ?  " 

"  I  have  just  told  you,"  he  replied,  "  and  you 
would  not  listen.  Why  do  you  want  to  hear  it 
again  ?  Do  you  want  to  become  his  disciples  ?  " 

This  was  too  much  for  their  dignities.  They 
reviled  him.  They  abused  him,  as  is  the  habit  of 
such  tribunals  when  no  argument  is  left  them. 
"  You  are  his  disciple,"  they  said.  "  We  are 
Moses'  disciples.  God  spoke  to  him,  but  as  for 
this  man,  who  knows  where  he  comes  from  ?  " 

Then  the  proud,  loyal  spirit  in  the  humble  man 
broke  out.  "  Why,  this  is  a  wonderful  thing,"  he 
said,  "  that  you  don't  know  where  he  comes  from, 


The  Man  Born  Blind  49 

and  yet  he  opened  my  eyes.  We  all  know  that  God 
does  not  hear  sinners;  but  if  a  man  is  a  worshipper 
of  God,  and  does  His  will,  him  He  hears.  Since 
the  world  began,  it  was  never  heard  that  any  one 
opened  the  eyes  of  a  man  born  blind.  If  this  man 
were  not  from  God,  he  could  do  nothing  of  this 
sort." 

The  insolence  of  such  a  rejoinder  from  a  mere 
ignorant  beggar,  such  as  he,  was  of  course  beyond 
endurance ;  it  made  them  stand  aghast. 

"  Thou  wast  altogether  born  in  sin — damned 
from  birth — and  dost  thou  teach  us  ?  "  And  they 
drove  him  from  the  place.  Probably  he  was  thrown 
out  bodily  by  the  officious  underlings,  with  the  cer- 
tainty that  he  would  be  formally  excommunicated 
from  the  synagogue  a  few  days  later. 

So  he  went  his  way  home,  a  marked  man,  under 
heavy  penalty,  like  an  apostate  or  a  criminal. 
He  must  needs  have  been  dazed  at  the  swift 
changes  of  fortune  that  had  come  over  him  that 
day. 

The  news  was  soon  brought  to  Jesus  of  what  had 
happened.  He  was  not  going  to  leave  the  poor 
man  in  trouble.  He  had  something  better  for  him 
even  than  eyesight,  that  would  last  longer,  and  bring 
greater  joys  intjo  his  life.  So  He  sought  him  out 
and  found  him;  and  the  beggar  saw  the  face  of  the 
friend  who  had  touched  his  eyes  with  so  divine  a 


50  The  Man  Born  Blind 

touch,  and  Jesus  looked  into  the  eyes  of  the  man 
who  had  so  sturdily  defended  Him,  at  heavy  cost. 

Possibly  each  thanked  the  other.  In  any  case 
Jesus  quickly  brought  their  talk  to  this  strange  ques- 
tion, "  Do  you  believe  on  the  Son  of  God?  "  Yes, 
surely  the  man  would  if  Jesus  wished  him  to. 
"  Who  is  he,  Lord,  that  I  may  believe  on  him  ?  " 
Jesus  answered,  "  Thou  hast  both  seen  him  and  he 
it  is  that  talketh  with  thee."  And  he  said,  "  Lord, 
I  believe."  And  he  worshipped  Him. 

And  here  he  passes  forever  out  of  sight.  We  are 
only  sure  that  he  was  a  disciple  after  his  Lord's 
heart,  true  and  leal,  and  if  he  was  presently  hounded 
out  of  Jerusalem  with  the  others,  he  went  bearing 
witness  to  the  word,  and  to  Jesus  Christ,  his  Lord. 
We  do  not  know  his  name,  and  probably  he  was  of 
very  humble  station.  But  well  would  it  be  for  you 
and  me  if  we  were  as  gratefully  sure  of  what  the 
great  Friend  has  done  for  us,  and  if  we  proved  as 
loyal  witnesses  to  His  power  and  goodness. 

For  notice  now  the  two  brief  lessons  that  lie 
agreeably  plain  upon  the  surface.  We  judge  a  tree 
by  its  fruits.  We  judge  a  man  by  his  actions.  It 
is  a  shrewd,  safe  way  of  judgment.  And  the  blind 
beggar  was  on  sure  ground  when  he  argued  that 
if  Jesus  were  a  bad  man  He  would  not  and  could 
not  work  such  miracles  of  love  and  pity.  They  were 
godlike,  and  Jesus  must  be  a  godlike  man.  As  some 


The  Man  Born  Blind  51 

said  later,  "  Can  a  demon  open  the  eyes  of  the 
blind?  These  are  not  the  sayings  of  one  possessed 
of  a  demon."  The  words  and  works  of  Jesus  de- 
mand not  only  an  explanation,  but  an  adequate 
explanation.  And  the  only  cause  that  could  ex- 
plain His  life  to  His  friends  was  that  God  was  in 
Him,  and  spoke  and  worked  through  Him. 

Every  year  I  find  myself  coming  more  and  more 
under  the  power  of  this  argument  in  judging  of  the 
person  of  Jesus.  Was  He  a  man  only,  like  our- 
selves, but  infinitely  better,  or  was  He,  as  His 
friends  have  always  believed  and  taught,  more  than 
man,  the  Son  of  God,  in  a  unique  and  unapproached 
relation  ? 

From  the  very  beginning,  as  Dr.  C.  R.  Brown 
has  so  forcibly  pointed  out,  there  have  been  this  high 
view  and  this  low  view  of  Jesus'  person.  That 
which  claimed  less  for  Him  has  almost  always  had 
strong  champions,  often  men  not  only  of  unusual 
culture  and  intellectual  strength,  but  men  of  win- 
some and  noble  life.  Yet  always  and  everywhere 
the  low  view  of  Jesus'  person  has  been  in  the  long 
run  a  fruitless  and  sterile  principle — unable  to  win 
victories,  unable  to  subdue  strongholds  of  sirt,  un- 
able to  propagate  and  sustain  itself.  Influential  as 
it  may  have  been  for  a  time,  it  has  never  been  a 
virile  and  conquering  faith.  The  seeds  of  death 
have  always  been  in  it. 


52  The  Man  Born  Blind 

While,  on  the  contrary,  the  high  view  of  Jesus' 
person  has  been  in  every  corner  of  the  world  a 
divine  and  thrilling  power  of  life.  Often  it  has 
been  overlaid  by  superstition  or  bigotry,  but  always 
it  has  burst  its  bonds,  and  has  wrought  its  own 
proper  effects,  cleansing,  redeeming,  transforming, 
in  the  very  power  of  God.  No  degradation  is  too 
profound  for  it  to  relieve,  no  race  of  men  is  too 
savage  or  debased  for  it  to  reach  and  save.  It  is 
a  living  spring  of  truth  and  purity  and  honor, 
wherever  it  touches  the  hearts  of  men. 

These  are  not  the  works  of  a  delusion  and  an 
untruth!  The  whole  moral  integrity  of  the  uni- 
verse would  seem  to  be  shaken  if  this  now  world- 
wide stream  of  moral  energy  came  from  the  muddy 
fountain  of  an  imposture,  whether  wilful  or  unin- 
tended. The  word  which  is  a  word  of  life  for 
millions  is  not  a  word  destined  to  perish  because 
untrue.  We  rest  upon  the  high  view  of  Jesus'  per- 
son, with  the  blind  beggar,  with  John,  and  Paul, 
and  Peter,  and  with  all  the  modern  apostles  to  a 
lost  world,  with  Livingstone,  and  Gilmore,  and 
Paton,  with  Grenfell,  and  Mott,  and  Jacob  Riis,  and 
Mrs.  Booth,  and  still  say  of  Him,  as  did  an  anxious, 
doubting  soul  of  old,  "  My  Lord  and  my  God!  " 

And  once  more,  see  how  great  a  gainer  was  this 
blind  man  for  his  sturdy,  unhesitating  confession 
of  his  Friend  and  Helper.  He  stood  firm  in  his 


The  Man  Born  Blind  53 

gratitude  and  loyalty  in  the  face  of  threats  and 
danger,  and  his  loyalty  led  him  straight  to  Jesus' 
life-long  friendship.  He  might  easily  have  crept 
away  from  any  further  association  with  Jesus,  as 
many  another  did.  He  had  never  even  seen  his 
physician.  He  might  easily  have  said,  "  It  does  not 
matter  much  who  touched  me.  The  mercy  is  from 
God ;  it  is  enough  to  give  glory  to  Him."  And  so  he 
would  have  escaped  all  the  perplexity  and  unpop- 
ularity that  came  upon  him  just  as  soon  as  he  in- 
sisted on  a  devoted  loyalty  to  the  man  Jesus,  who 
had  touched  his  eyes. 

There  are  only  a  few  causes  in  life  that  are 
worth  this  brave,  uncompromising  loyalty,  that  re- 
fuses to  count  the  cost.  But  gratitude  to  Jesus 
Christ,  the  Saviour,  has  always  stood  first  and 
glorious,  far  above  them  all. 

There,  for  instance,  was  that  poor  noble  old 
philosopher,  Galileo,  standing  like  this  blind  beggar 
before  a  threatening  tribunal  that  sought  to  brow- 
beat him  out  of  the  truth!  And  we  hear  him  say- 
ing— he  who  knew  of  the  motions  of  the  heav- 
enly bodies  as  we  know  of  them — we  hear  him  say- 
in'g,  broken  and  terrified  in  spirit,  "  I  abjure,  curse, 
and  detest  the  false  and  unscriptural  doctrine  that 
the  earth  moves  and  is  not  the  centre  of  the  world." 

And  men  do  not  condemn  him.  There  are  few 
scientific  doctrines  for  which  a  man  will  go  to  the 


54  The  Man  Born  Blind 

torture  that  threatened  Galileo.  But  far  above  all 
scientific  loyalties,  shining  and  illustrious  in  its 
claims,  is  the  loyalty  of  personal  gratitude  to  Jesus 
Christ,  for  which  an  unnumbered  multitude  have 
gone  bravely,  even  if  in  fear  and  weakness,  to  the 
threatened  death. 

And  greatly  do  we  need,  like  this  blind  man,  to 
give  sharp  definition  to  our  recognition  of  what 
Jesus  Christ  has  done  for  us,  that  our  gratitude 
may  be  living  and  powerful  over  us,  and  that  our 
trust  in  His  friendship  and  help  for  the  future  may 
be  strong  and  full  of  joy.  Would  that  Jesus  had 
laid  His  own  fingers  on  our  eyes,  that  we  might 
have  felt  His  touch  and  looked  up  into  His  face  of 
love.  But  we  must  walk  our  whole  way  by  faith 
alone.  And  yet,  Jesus  Christ  has  met  us !  He  has 
done  more  for  us  even  than  for  that  blind  beggar. 
God's  mercy  has  reached  us  through  Him  and 
through  Him  only.  It  is  the  fact  of  His  death  and 
life  that  has  broken  the  power  of  sin  in  our  lives. 
It  is  on  His  promises  that  all  our  hope  of  the  future 
rests. 

We  can  easily  dissolve  in  a  nebulous  uncertainty 
all  that  has  come  to  us  through  Jesus  Christ,  and 
go  without  the  bond  of  gratitude  and  fellowship 
between  us,  all  our  days.  But  how  unspeakably 
shall  we  be  the  losers,  if  we  so  lose  the  richest  and 
most  fruitful  relationship  of  the  human  soul ! 


The  Man  Born  Blind  55 

Let  us  count  up  what  He  has  done  for  us.  Let 
us  make  confession  of  His  goodness  and  our  in- 
debtedness. Let  us  begin  each  day  with  a  new 
thanksgiving  and  reckon  the  future  in  terms  of  His 
abiding  presence  and  helpfulness.  And  we  also,  in 
this  close  natural  friendship  with  Jesus  Christ,  shall 
find,  like  the  blind  man,  that  God  is  taking  posses- 
sion of  our  lives. 


IV 
Making  a   Convenience  of  Christ 

"He  that  loveth  father  or  mother  more  than  me,  is  not 
worthy  of  me;  and  he  that  loveth  son  or  daughter  more  than 
me,  is  not  worthy  of  me.  And  he  that  doth  not  take  his 
cross,  and  follow  after  me,  is  not  worthy  of  me.  He  that 
findeth  his  life  shall  lose  it;  aud  he  that  loseth  his  life  for 
my  sake  shall  find  it." — MATT.  10:37-9. 

THERE  is  no  doubt  that  human  nature  would 
only  too  gladly  make  a  convenience  of  Jesus 
Christ.  None  of  us  care  to  pay  for  that 
which  may  be  had  for  nothing.  In  these  wise 
late  days  we  press  into  our  service  all  the  wisdom  of 
the  ages.  Wherever  we  can  gather  up  a  thought 
of  inspiration  or  comfort  or  enlightenment,  we  ap- 
propriate it  gladly  as  our  inheritance  from  the  past, 
whether  it  be  from  Hebrew  prophet,  or  Indian  sage, 
or  Greek  philosopher.  We  are  the  heirs  of  the  ages, 
and  while  we  own  our  indebtedness  to  them,  we 
have  no  means  of  paying  them  this  debt,  nor  do  we 
come  under  any  concrete  obligation. 

And  so   it   is  natural,   perhaps,  that  when  our 
eager  yet  self-indulgent  generation  comes  to  the 

56 


Making  a  Convenience  of  Christ       57 

words  and  works  of  Jesus,  now  the  common  prop- 
erty of  the  race  for  near  two  thousand  years,  it 
should  freely  seize  upon  every  idea  they  hold  that 
is  ethically  uplifting  or  spiritually  helpful.  We  ad- 
mit that  no  other  man  has  ever  brought  so  great 
a  light  and  help  to  his  fellow-men.  We  own  Him 
more  than  we  can  estimate.  But  so  also  do  we  own 
a  debt  of  gratitude  to  many  another  leader  of  men 
on  whom  the  past  has  closed.  To  Socrates  and 
Plato,  to  Epictetus  and  to  Marcus  Aurelius,  to  Paul, 
and  John,  and  Dante,  and  Pascal,  and  Shakespeare, 
Goethe,  and  Emerson,  and  Browning,  and  a  host 
of  others ;  not  directly  to  them  all,  but  at  least  indi- 
rectly and  in  a  general  way. 

Yet  so  much  does  our  debt  to  Jesus  surpass  all 
these,  that  we  are  willing  even  to  count  ourselves 
students,  disciples,  of  His ;  to  be  classed  with  those 
who  count  Him  the  supreme  spiritual  leader  of  all 
time,  and  who  would  wish  to  be  considered  follow- 
ers of  His  ideals.  And  with  good  reason,  too! 
How  much  solid  comfort  His  words  have  brought 
us !  How  inspiring  and  fruitful  in  our  lives  some  of 
His  spiritual  conceptions  have  proved!  What  a 
moral  help  and  safeguard  we  have  found  in  His 
example!  No  wonder  we  are  willing  to  admit  our 
indebtedness  to  Him,  and  to  allow  men  to  know 
our  appreciation  of  Him,  and  even  to  call  us — in  a 
conventional  and  guarded  way — followers  of  His 


58      Making  a  Convenience  of  Christ 

teaching.  He  has  been  a  great  help  to  us  unde- 
niably. 

We  should  be  foolish,  should  we  not,  to  deny 
ourselves  this  help!  I  am  not  going  to  read  Shak- 
speare  the  less,  or  cut  off  one  atom  of  the  pleasure 
he  gives  me,  because  I  cannot  make  him  any  return 
for  the  favor.  What  he  can  give  me  I  have  a  right 
to  take;  and  if  it  is  simply  making  a  convenience  of 
him,  well  and  good,  let  it  stand  at  that !  He  serves 
me,  and  I  use  whatever  service  he  can  render.  And 
so  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth !  His  was  a  great  soul,  and 
His  words  are  a  great  help  to  me.  I  reverently  ad- 
mit my  debt  to  Him.  But  as  for  going  further,  for 
putting  a  yoke  on  my  neck,  becoming  a  follower  of 
His  in  the  sense  that  I  must  accept  all  His  teachings 
and  follow  all  His  commands,  some  of  which  are 
both  disagreeable  and  inconvenient,  as  for  becoming 
an  open  partisan  of  His  in  the  sense  of  being  what 
is  called  a  Christian,  to  stand  by  Him  and  His  ways 
and  His  policies  at  all  times  and  under  all  condi- 
tions, like  the  pledged  friend  of  a  living  man,  it 
is  out  of  the  question.  It  would  be  irksome,  and 
awkward,  and  inconvenient  in  many  ways,  and  is 
simply  not  to  be  thought  of.  What  Jesus  can  con- 
tribute to  my  life,  without  disordering  it,  I  am  will- 
ing to  take,  but  further,  at  present,  I  cannot  go. 
This  is  what  many  say. 

What  answer  Jesus  makes  to  this  attitude  of  our 


Making  a  Convenience  of  Christ      59 

day,  you  know.  We  have  His  answer  in  His  own 
words  in  our  text.  Love  he  asks  for,  first  of  all — a 
love  that  outwears  life  and  death.  Browning,  or 
Dante,  or  Plato,  we  may  love  or  not,  if  we  are  their 
followers — but  our  Lord  Jesus,  in  what  dark  are  we 
wandering  if  we  have  no  love  of  Him ! 

The  cross  He  insists  upon.  Elsewhere  He  speaks 
of  the  burden  as  a  yoke.  But  whether  it  be  yoke 
or  cross  no  man  becomes  His  follower  save  at  a 
price — at  a  cost.  He  who  would  make  a  con- 
venience of  Christ  is  met  by  Jesus  at  the  outset 
with  this  heavy  inconvenience  of  something  that  it 
bends  the  will  to  bear. 

And  to  make  His  demands  clearer  still,  though 
with  all  His  heart  He  yearned  for  friends,  if  He 
could  only  have  had  them  at  a  less  price,  He  asks 
for  life.  The  furthest  reaching  claim  of  all !  For 
the  whole  sum  of  a  man's  powers,  and  hopes,  and 
possibilities;  that  one  should  put  it  in  His  hands, 
trusting  Him  with  its  use.  These  are  dear  terms 
on  which  to  be  a  Christian,  are  they  not? 

No  doubt  Jesus  was  and  is  patient  and  sympa- 
thetic beyond  all  our  thought  with  those  who  are 
groping  after  Him  honestly,  much  hindered  and 
darkened  by  doubt  and  ignorance  and  selfishness. 
Surely  he  counts  many  His  followers  whom  we 
might  look  upon  askance.  But  for  the  church  or 
society  that  would  complacently  use  Him  as  far  as 


60      Making  a  Convenience  of  Christ 

is  agreeable,  making  of  Him  a  spiritual  convenience, 
but  without  sharing  His  love,  or  His  unpopularity, 
or  His  self-devotion  to  the  lost,  from  them  He 
would  seem  to  turn  utterly  away. 

Do  not  we  know  something  of  a  church  that,  e.g., 
claims  all  the  comfort  of  Jesus'  gospel,  but  with 
growing  wealth  gives  less  and  less  each  year  to 
preach  that  gospel  to  the  \vhole  creation;  enjoying 
its  convenient  application  to  themselves,  but  repudi- 
ating the  inconvenience  of  being  made  messengers 
to  others — that  will  not  take  the  trouble  to  stand 
with  Him  as  the  Seeker  of  the  lost?  Or  of  a 
church  that  probably  talks  more  of  Jesus  than  it 
ever  did,  but  that  widely  forgets  that  to  love  Him 
is  at  once  the  gladdest  and  most  necessary  element  in 
a  disciple's  life;  so  that  with  all  its  talk  of  ethical 
and  social  service  it  is  a  church  grown  cold  and 
passionless  ?  Or  of  a  society  that  is  more  and  more 
pathetically  afraid  of  pain  or  poverty  or  hardness 
of  any  kind,  that  adds  new  luxuries  and  demands 
new  amusements  every  year,  that  wants  every  ray 
of  cheer  or  peace  or  comfort  that  Jesus  shed  on 
life,  but  that  fears  to  come  to  close  grips  with 
Him  lest  He  somehow  break  in  upon  its  ease  ?  And 
we  know  individuals  who  are  tempted  always  to 
get  as  much  as  possible  from  Christ,  while  giving 
as  little  as  may  be  in  return.  And  there  are  some 
whose  dearest  hopes,  in  their  heart  of  hearts,  centre 


Making  a  Convenience  of  Christ       61 

on  Him,  and  who  yet  are  unwilling  even  to  confess 
Him  as  the  Lord  and  Master  of  their  lives. 

Now  all  of  this,  in  comparison  with  the  white 
heat  of  earnestness  and  love  in  these  words  of 
Jesus  about  discipleship,  is  cold,  calculating  cow- 
ardice and  selfish  prudence.  It  is  making  a  con- 
venience of  Christ.  It  is  not  worthy  of  sons  and 
daughters  of  God,  to  whom  His  eternal  grace  and 
mercy  have  come  through  Jesus  Christ.  And  it  is 
only  possible  for  those  who  have  drifted  out  of 
touch  with  the  actual  gospel  of  the  New  Testament, 
who  have  forgotten  how  great  and  free  it  is,  how  it 
throbs  with  love  and  new  strength  for  life,  and  how 
it  lays  answering  demands  on  the  deepest  energies 
of  our  souls. 

See  now  how  Jesus  deals  with  this  strong  tend- 
ency of  human  nature  to  deal  with  Him  weakly 
and  unworthily,  following  Him  cautiously  and  with 
prudent  calculations  as  to  where  one  is  going.  In 
His  calls  to  men  to  follow  Him,  how  far  does  He 
make  it  easier  for  them  to  obey,  by  recognizing 
their  cowardice  and  love  of  ease,  and  conceding 
something  to  their  various  weaknesses?  And  here 
instantly  the  fact  emerges,  conspicuous,  unmistaka- 
ble, that  Jesus  conceded  nothing !  He  spoke  to  those 
weak,  tempted  men  and  women  of  His  time  as 
though  they  were  divinely  heroic.  Confidently,  and 
without  apology  or  hesitation,  He  made  demands 


62       Making  a  Convenience  of  Christ 

on  His  would-be  followers,  that  were  sublime  in 
their  contempt  for  human  love  of  bargaining  and 
compromise.  He  treated — and  the  heart  of  human- 
ity has  thrilled  in  answer  to  such  treatment — he 
treated  their  sloth  and  cowardice  and  love  of  ease 
with  utter  disregard,  as  though  they  were  not.  He 
made  no  provision  for  them.  He  trusted  to  a  great 
love  to  consume  them  and  make  them  powerless. 
He  would  not  admit  that  Levi  or  Zaccheus,  or  you 
or  I,  are  necessarily  held  in  bondage  to  them.  He 
speaks  with  a  quiet  assurance  of  His  right  so  to 
command,  and  of  our  power  to  obey. 

You  know  the  two  classes  of  leaders !  One  that 
gains  followers  by  asking  so  little  of  men  that  they 
stand  to  risk  nothing  in  case  they  fail;  and  the 
other,  that  appeals  to  the  heroic  in  men,  asking 
them  to  risk  everything — like  Garibaldi  in  divided 
Italy,  or  Pizarro  on  the  Isle  of  Gallo.  All  the  for- 
lorn hopes  and  great  triumphs  of  the  world  have 
been  led  by  such  leaders.  The  great  achievements 
of  our  race  have  been  won  by  men  and  women 
who  hurled  themselves  upon  difficulty  at  the  call 
of  such  heroic  contempt  for  odds  of  pain  and 
hardship. 

And  chief  among  all  the  world's  throng  of  leaders 
who  have  scorned  even  to  recognize  the  latent  cow- 
ardice in  their  followers'  hearts,  stands  Jesus  Christ. 
He,  alone  among  men,  knew  how  much  the  human 


Making  a  Convenience  of  Christ      63 

heart  would  do  and  dare  for  such  a  leader  and  for 
such  a  cause.  He  alone  had  courage  to  ask  so 
much — to  ask  for  the  uttermost  reach  of  self -sur- 
render— because  He  knew  the  immeasurable  force 
of  divine  love  in  its  appeal.  And  He  had  faith  to 
foresee  the  ever-growing  multitude  who  would 
choose  rather  to  stand  with  Him  in  death,  than  to 
stand  apart  from  Him  in  the  most  voluptuous  joys 
of  life. 

In  early  days,  by  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  Jesus  broke 
in  on  the  daily  bread-winning  of  those  fishermen 
with  the  peremptory  bidding  to  leave  their  fish  and 
nets  and  boats,  and  partners  in  the  business,  and 
take  up  a  life  of  utter  strangeness  as  His  personal 
attendants.  He  offered  no  halfway  compromise; 
He  asked  unhesitatingly  for  what  only  a  king  might 
command.  But  He  knew  how  the  heroic  spirit  of 
self-devotion  was  there,  waiting  for  an  appeal;  and 
from  that  day  they  were  His,  to  do  as  He  would, 
until  neither  Herod  nor  Nero  could  shake  their 
constancy. 

Then  Levi  was  appealed  to,  in  his  very  office  in 
the  custom-house,  to  shake  himself  free  from  all 
his  past  and  become  an  attendant  on  an  itinerant 
rabbi.  And  then  began  those  utterances  that  stead- 
ily deepened  in  tone,  as  He  drew  nearer  to  the  heart 
of  the  world's  sin. 

"  Not  every  one  that  saith  unto  me,  Lord,  Lord, 


64      Making  a  Convenience  of  Christ 

shall  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  but  he 
that  doeth  the  will  of  my  Father  which  is  in 
heaven." 

"  Strive  to  enter  in  by  the  narrow  door,  for  many, 
I  say  to  you,  will  seek  to  enter  in  and  shall  not  be 
able." 

'  Think  not  that  I  came  to  send  peace  on  the 
earth.    I  came  not  to  send  peace  but  a  sword." 

"  He  that  loveth  father  or  mother  more  than 
me,  is  not  worthy  of  me,  and  he  that  loveth  son 
or  daughter  more  than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me, 
and  he  that  doth  not  take  his  cross  and  follow  after 
me,  is  not  worthy  of  me." 

Then  those  words  spoken  out  of  great  trouble 
of  His  own :  "  If  any  man  would  come  after  me,  let 
him  deny  himself  and  take  up  his  cross  and  follow 
me.  For  whosoever  would  save  his  life  shall  lose 
it;  but  whosoever  shall  lose  his  life  for  my  sake, 
the  same  shall  save  it." 

And  how  He  sifted  those  who  would  have  lightly 
become  His  companions !  Here  is  one  who  says : 
"  I  will  follow  thee  whithersoever  thou  goest."  But 
Jesus  made  answer,  "  Foxes  have  holes,  and  birds  of 
the  air  have  nests;  but  the  Son  of  man  hath  not 
where  to  lay  his  head." 

And  another  said,  "  I  will  follow  thee,  Lord ;  but 
first  suffer  me  to  bid  farewell  to  them  that  are  at 
my  house."  And  Jesus  said,  "  No  man,  having  put 


Making  a  Convenience  of  Christ      65 

his  hand  to  the  plough,  and  looking  back,  is  fit  for 
the  kingdom  of  God." 

Still  later,  when  there  went  with  Him  great  multi- 
tudes, He  turned  and  said  unto  them : 

"If  any  man  cometh  unto  me,  and  hateth  not  his 
own  father,  and  mother,  and  wife,  and  children, 
and  brethren,  and  sisters,  yea,  and  his  own  life  also, 
he  cannot  be  my  disciple." 

There  are  other  utterances,  closely  allied  to  these 
— as  on  the  hopelessness  of  serving  God  and  mam- 
mon, the  relative  worthlessness  to  us  of  a  hand  or 
foot  or  eye  that  causes  us  to  stumble,  the  necessity 
of  becoming  like  little  children  if  we  would  enter 
the  kingdom  of  God.  These  are  the  chief  and  most 
characteristic  utterances  of  our  Lord  on  the  general 
subject  of  discipleship.  They  are  hard  sayings ! 
What  are  we  to  do  with  them,  and  how  are  we 
to  make  a  place  for  them  in  a  church  that  would 
make  a  convenience  of  Jesus  Christ? 

We  feel  the  need  of  something  easier  to  begin 
with.  We  would  like  to  plead  that  we  are  not  the 
sort  of  stuff  out  of  which  heroes  are  made:  that 
we  have  not  had  the  sort  of  upbringing  to  make  us 
companions  of  the  pure  and  holy  One:  that  it  is 
in  any  case  impossible  for  us  to  live  a  continuous 
life  of  obedience;  we  could  manage  three  days  a 
week,  on  an  average,  or  even  four,  but  that  we  are 
accustomed  to  being  taken  off  our  feet  by  the  reac- 


66      Making  a  Convenience  of  Christ 

tion  from  any  special  moral  endeavor,  and  if 
we  became  Christians  this  would  be  glaringly  ap- 
parent. Or  that  we  are  naturally  sceptical,  or  nat- 
urally independent,  or  naturally  pleasure-loving,  or 
what  not.  So  that,  in  a  word,  if  we  are  to  be 
brought  through  life  with  the  minimum  of  friction 
and  unpleasantness,  we  must  have  a  less  heroic 
treatment  than  the  unqualified  command  to  follow 
Jesus  Christ  as  sworn  companions  and  disciples. 

But  the  answer  of  our  Lord  to  such  a  hesitating 
disciple  is  what  we  know  it  to  be.  With  contempt 
for  the  "  minimum  of  unpleasantness,"  with  utter 
ignoring  of  the  poor  stuff  out  of  which  we  are 
made,  with  denial  of  disabling  weakness,  our  Lord, 
firm  and  confident  in  His  love  for  us,  only  bids  us 
the  more  exactingly  to  deny  ourselves  and  take  up 
our  cross  and  come  after  Him. 

And  that  is  just  the  message  for  which  we  hunger 
— the  command  of  one  who  perfectly  knows  the  lim- 
itations of  our  weakness;  who  knows  that  it  has  not 
disabled  us,  and  cannot  disable  us  if  we  will  listen 
to  His  voice.  Who  knows  the  limits  of  our  un- 
profitableness; knows  that  we  are  not  unprofitable, 
but  worthy  of  a  high  calling.  Knows  the  limits  of 
our  cowardice  and  love  of  ease, — that  we  are  not 
cowards  by  nature,  or  sold  in  helpless  slavery  to 
love  or  comfort,  but  that  we  have  still  the  spirit  of 
free  men,  from  which  heroes  and  martyrs  spring. 


Making  a  Convenience  of  Christ       67 

And  then,  with  this  hardness  of  service  reiterated 
and  thrust  upon  our  view,  He  calls  us,  the  pleasure- 
loving,  to  rise  up  and  follow  Him, — to  do  as  He 
will  have  us  do  unto  the  end,  for  better,  for  worse, 
for  richer,  for  poorer;  to  go  to  the  altar  or  to  the 
plough,  to  Central  Africa  or  the  kitchen,  to  labor 
mightily  or  to  lie  still  in  bodily  pain  while  the  great 
world  moves  on  without  us. 

He  will  take  no  less !  We  may  be  able  to  join 
the  Catholic  church  for  less,  or  the  Methodist  or 
the  Congregational.  But  we  cannot  join  Jesus 
Christ  for  less.  He  makes  the  claim  with  the  ten- 
derness and  love  of  a  mother,  but  with  the  unaltera- 
ble firmness  of  the  righteous  God. 

He  cannot  take  less !  One  cannot  move  the  hu- 
man soul  like  a  puppet,  as  caprice  suggests,  any 
more  than  one  can  compel  the  lightning;  each  has 
its  laws,  that  laugh  at  our  caprice.  And  God  knows 
that,  for  the  work  He  has  to  do  with  us,  nothing 
less  than  "  no  compromise  "  will  answer.  His  aim 
is  not  to  see  how  many  weak,  cowardly,  selfish  souls 
can  at  last  be  piloted  into  heaven,  but  to  lead  us  on 
to  win  the  estate  of  children  of  God.  And  half- 
decisions,  for  such  piloting,  are  useless.  Half- 
persuaded,  half-wilful,  half-mutinous  followers  can 
be  piloted  nowhere — they  are  the  sport  of  circum- 
stance. No  man,  least  of  all  themselves,  can  tell 
where  they  will  be  a  twelve-month  from  to-day. 


68      Making  a  Convenience  of  Christ 

And  we  would  not  have  Him  take  less.  For  a 
destiny  that  reaches  on  without  an  end,  we  do  not 
want  to  be  taken  at  our  weakest  and  meanest.  If 
He  sees  better  in  us,  if  He  is  confident  that  we  are 
capable  of  heroic  patience,  then,  as  He  loves  us, 
let  Him  appeal  to  it,  and  resolutely  refuse  our  poor 
pleadings  for  a  less  exacting  calling  or  a  meaner 
birthright.  And  if  He  sees  that  we,  who  are  so 
ready  thus  to  make  of  Him  a  convenience  only,  may 
be  His  friends  forever,  may  know  His  heart  and 
enter  into  His  heart's  love,  then  who  would  have 
Him  make  easy  for  us  the  way  to  the  shameful  life 
of  evaded  privilege  and  obligation? 

It  is  a  great  joy  to  be  able  to  bring  with  confi- 
dence the  message  that  the  call  of  Jesus  to  His  fol- 
lowers is  something  that  reaches  to  the  last  fibre 
of  their  capacity;  that  the  bond  between  them  is  the 
personal  bond  of  an  undying  love,  with  all  the  obli- 
gation that  such  a  love  entails:  and  that  the  New 
Testament  knows  no  other  way  for  a  disciple  to  live 
with  Christ  than  on  these  great  heroic  terms  of  per- 
sonal devotion, — a  devotion  of  trifling  beginnings, 
it  may  be,  with  us,  but  of  an  infinite  depth  and  ef- 
ficiency with  Him. 

Suppose  less  were  possible!  That  His  people 
could  walk  with  Him  on  the  basis  simply  of  His 
spiritual  convenience  to  their  souls!  What  would 
become  of  us  when  our  souls  stand  face  to  face  with 


Making  a  Convenience  of  Christ      69 

the  elemental  emergencies  of  life,  in  times  of  great 
moral  temptation,  in  days  of  bewildering  physical 
prostration,  in  the  grip  of  heavy  sorrow,  or  in  the 
hour  of  death?  What  unspeakable  loss  is  ours  if 
Jesus  Christ  then  is  only  the  dull  memory  of  an 
ethical  convenience.  But  if  in  such  hours  He  is 
still  perceived  to  be  the  one  who  hath  loved  us  and 
loosed  us  from  our  sins,  to  whom  we  have  given 
ourselves  unshakably  and  whose  we  are  in  distress 
or  sunshine,  then,  indeed,  the  truth  of  God  is  found 
to  reach  as  far  as  human  need. 

So  then,  let  us  meet  His  offers  heroically,  as  He 
would  have  us.  Not  bargaining  to  see  how  little  He 
will  exact,  but  rejoicing  to  choose  Him  and  all  His 
will  for  us.  And  if  He  would  have  us  confess  Him 
before  men,  let  us  exult  that  we  may  openly,  un- 
hesitatingly, take  our  stand  with  Him,  and  feel  the 
thrill  of  its  eternal  promise  and  its  joy.  It  was  he 
who  refused  the  great  renunciation  who  went  away 
sorrowful;  it  is  those  who  measure  conveniences 
with  their  Saviour  who  wear  out  the  heavy  lives; 
but  always  the  joy  of  the  Lord  is  for  those  who, 
looking  unto  Him,  fear  not  to  admit  Him  wholly  to 
their  hearts. 


V 
With  Feet  of  Clay 

"  Be  thou  sober  in  all  things;  suffer  hardship    ....  ful- 
fil thy  ministry." — 2  TIM.  4:5. 

IF  you  look  out  of  the  car  window  on  the  left 
side,  as  you  go  up  by  train  from  Jaffa  to  Jeru- 
salem, you  will  see,  after  you  have  begun  to 
enter  the  hill  country,  the  site  of  the  village  of 
Zorah:  perched  high  up  on  the  shoulder  of  the 
mountain,  just  under  the  eaves,  as  has  been  said, 
of  Judah's  mountain  home.     It  was  the  home  of 
one  of  the  heroes  of  our  own  childhood,  of  one  of 
the  judges  of  Israel;  of  the  great  tribal  hero  of  the 
Danites,  the  strong  man,  Samson. 

It  was  as  beautiful  a  spot  for  a  quiet  boyhood 
home  as  one  might  find.  But  in  that  day  the  land 
lay  under  the  oppression  of  its  enemies,  the  Philis- 
tines of  the  plain.  They  were  the  rulers,  meeting 
on  half  friendly  terms  with  the  tributary  Hebrews, 
who  lived  in  timid  submission  under  their  suzerainty. 
The  village  itself  lay  on  the  north  slope,  only  a  few 
miles  distant  from  the  Philistine  lowlands,  where 
the  yellow  grain  in  harvest  time  almost  filled  the 

70 


With  Feet  of  Clay  71 

horizon,  to  the  blue  edge  of  the  sea.  There  were 
the  great  caravan  routes,  the  crowded  heathen  cities 
of  the  Philistines,  the  busy,  fascinating,  wicked 
world,  that  lay  unknown  and  hateful  to  the  Hebrews 
in  their  mountain  home,  beyond  their  ken  or  care. 

Sequestered  from  this  gay  heathen  life,  in  the 
tiny  hill-town  of  Zorah,  was  the  home  of  Samson's 
parents.  They  were  of  choice  stock.  She  was  a 
woman  of  beauty  of  face  and  character  alike;  and 
Manoah  was  a  man  known  through  all  the  country- 
side for  his  sterling  virtue  and  godliness.  They  had 
no  son.  To  them  appeared  an  angel,  to  tell  them 
that  the  son  who  should  be  born  to  them  was  dedi- 
cated to  a  great  work — the  freeing  of  the  people  of 
Jehovah  from  their  oppressors.  He  should  be  a 
marked  man  from  his  birth,  as  one  who  had  a  divine 
calling.  He  should  be  a  Nazirite — a  man  under  a 
vow — who  should  drink  no  wine,  and  whose  long 
hair  should  be  the  outward  sign  of  an  inward 
purity  and  consecration. 

So  he  began  life,  a  Hebrew  Brahman,  with  every 
favor  that  can  meet  a  life  at  its  beginning;  with 
godly,  loving  parents,  and  a  peaceful,  honorable 
home,  in  which  he  was  to  be  trained  for  his  high 
calling.  A  young  fellow  he  was,  as  a  lad,  head  and 
shoulders  above  any  of  his  companions  in  stature,  in 
strength,  in  spirits,  in  courage,  and  audacity,  an 
athlete  of  renown — a  man  to  have  a  career  like 


72  With  Feet  of  Clay 

another  Moses  or  Joshua,  or  David  after  him,  as 
a  leader  and  saviour  of  his  people.  And  he  was 
free  from  one  of  the  great  temptations  of  his  tribe, 
he  was  a  pledged  teetotaler,  a  total  abstainer  from 
what  made  drunkards  of  so  many  of  his  fellows. 
And  we  may  be  sure  that  there  was  no  prouder, 
more  hopeful  father  or  mother  in  all  Israel  than  his 
mother,  and  his  father  Manoah. 

But  here  begins  a  canker  to  show  itself  in  the 
bud,  a  shadow  to  steal  over  the  fairness  of  his  pros- 
pects. He  seems  to  have  no  ambition  in  any  wise 
proportionate  to  his  strength;  to  have  no  clear 
vision  of  a  heroic  life — of  what  any  life  must  mean 
to  a  man  who  was  to  be  a  leader  and  helper  of 
others.  He  has  no  self-control.  He  must  have, 
like  a  spoiled  child,  the  gratification  of  the  moment, 
even  if  it  breaks  in  disastrously  on  God's  plan  for 
his  life. 

Only  three  miles  away,  among  the  lower  hills 
across  the  valley,  was  Timnath,  occupied  by  the 
Philistines.  And  there  was  a  girl  who  had  caught 
his  fancy.  It  did  not  matter  that  by  birth  and 
training  and  preference  she  was  one  who  hated  and 
despised  his  people;  that  she  was  an  idol-wor- 
shipper, and  of  the  race  that  he  was  sworn  to  fight 
to  the  death  and  overthrow;  that  to  marry  her  was 
to  cast  his  whole  career  into  confusion,  and  prob- 
ably break  his  mother's  heart.  She  was  what  he 


With  Feet  of  Clay  73 

wanted  at  the  moment,  and  the  habits  of  years  had 
made  him  think  that  what  he  wanted  at  the  moment 
was  the  thing  that  he  must  have,  and  that  somehow 
it  must  be  right  for  him  to  have. 

But  what  about  the  fidelity  of  a  brave  man — of  a 
true  patriot  to  his  people?  What  about  the  honor 
of  Jehovah,  that  it  was  his  chiefest  duty  to  up- 
hold? How  was  he  to  be  a  leader  of  other  young 
men  against  the  enemy,  if  he  went  over  to  that 
enemy  at  the  beginning?  These  were  inconvenient 
thoughts,  and,  as  we  all  know  how  to  do,  he  put 
them  aside  and  thought  only  how  impossible  was 
any  other  solution  of  the  difficulty  than  the  one 
that  should  gratify  his  desire.  So  he  compelled 
his  parents  to  arrange  the  marriage. 

You  can  trace  on  the  story  in  the  chapter  fol- 
lowing. How  he  led  a  life  apparently  quite  uncon- 
trolled of  any  high  or  steadfast  purpose.  Sometimes 
he  sulked,  like  Achilles,  in  his  tent;  and  then  in 
freakish  rage  would  burst  out  in  some  useless  act 
of  private  revenge  against  the  enemy.  He  never 
led  or  attempted  to  lead  his  people  against  their 
oppressors.  He  was  himself  the  sport  of  his  own 
impulse.  He  was  so  helpless  in  the  sight  of  pleasure 
that  any  noble  achievement,  demanding  self-re- 
straint, was  quite  impossible  for  him. 

As  the  years  went  on,  although  he  became  a  judge 
of  Israel,  it  is  evident  that  he  was  less  and  less 


74  With  Feet  of  Clay 

content  to  abide  the  simple  life  of  a  country  village 
in  Judea.  He  hankered  for  the  paved  city  streets 
where  gilded  chariots  went  and  came,  where  ships 
from  strange  lands  lay  at  the  piers,  where  foreign 
perfumes  drifted  out  from  baths  and  temples,  and 
where  the  rugged  simplicity  of  Hebrew  peasants 
was  but  a  jest  for  the  luxurious.  He  used  to  go 
down  into  the  cities  of  the  plain  for  his  pleasures. 
The  nearer  cities,  Ashkelon,  Gath,  and  Ekron,  he 
had  apparently  often  visited.  They  lay  near  at 
hand,  for  the  whole  scene  of  his  life  was  but  a 
tiny  spot.  In  search  of  new  diversion  he  even  went 
as  far  as  Gaza,  where  he  was  well-nigh  surprised, 
and  where  only  his  giant  strength  saved  him  from 
captivity. 

At  last,  after  he  had  so  lived  as  judge  of  Israel 
for  twenty  years,  a  disappointment  and  a  failure,  a 
useless  border  champion  and  freebooter,  who  might 
have  been  the  divinely  empowered  saviour  of  his 
people,  the  Philistines  planned  to  capture  him  with- 
out a  struggle.  There  in  his  own  valley — the  Vale 
of  Sorek — they  laid  a  trap  for  him.  And  there  he 
who  had  never  taken  the  trouble  to  be  his  own 
master  finds  a  master  at  last  in  others.  They  take 
him  and  put  out  his  eyes — as  Asiatic  cruelty  so  loved 
to  do — and  harnessed  him  up  in  place  of  a  donkey  at 
the  prison  mill,  there  to  push  in  dreary  endless  round 
at  the  polished  beam  that  turned  the  upper  stone. 


With  Feet  of  Clay  75 

And  when  his  earthly  sight  went  out,  then  his 
true  sight  came  to  him.  There  in  the  endless  dark 
he  could  see  his  life  unrolled;  could  see,  in  clear-cut 
relief,  the  career  that  Jehovah  meant  for  him — that 
had  been  his,  if  only  he  had  understood  that  he  must 
himself  work  out  the  fulfilment  of  the  angel's 
prophecy;  if  only  he  had  been  man  enough  to  be 
sober  in  all  things,  to  endure  hardness,  to  fulfil  his 
ministry.  And  now  the  chance  was  irrecoverably 
gone.  Even  were  he  set  free,  his  eyes  were  out ;  the 
weakest  of  his  enemies  might  put  him  to  shame. 
Repentance  and  wisdom  came  to  him  there,  too  late 
to  be  of  service  other  than  to  make  him  humble 
before  his  God. 

The  only  atonement  he  could  make  was  to  secure 
one  last  revenge,  and  gladly  throw  away  in  it  his 
tasteless,  useless  life — "  let  me  die  with  the  Philis- 
tines !  "  It  was  a  sweet  revenge,  but  as  idle  as  all 
the  other  revenges  of  his  life  had  been.  It  deepened 
the  Philistine  hatred  and  strengthened  their  oppres- 
sion of  his  people,  but  brought  the  day  of  deliver- 
ance not  an  hour  the  nearer.  It  was  a  spectacular, 
memorable  ending  for  a  life  memorable,  as  so 
many  lives  have  been,  for  the  magnificence  of 
its  promise  and  the  pitifulness  of  its  achieve- 
ment. 

The  story  of  Samson  is  so  plain  and  simple  in 
its  lessons  for  to-day  that  they  scarce  need  pointing 


76  With  Feet  of  Clay 

out  It  was  a  typical  life  of  failure — typical  of  a 
few  great  lives,  in  every  century,  and  an  unnumbered 
multitude  of  humbler  ones;  lives  of  disappointment, 
like  Coleridge,  or  De  Quincey,  or  Edgar  Allan  Poe 
in  literature,  or  like  Aaron  Burr,  or  Lord  Randolph 
Churchill,  or  Charles  Stuart  Parnell  in  politics; 
and  typical  of  the  other  unnoticed  careers,  whose 
name  is  legion,  that  each  of  us  has  watched  in  his 
circle  of  personal  acquaintance,  each  one,  however 
humble,  bearing  the  burden  of  its  own  tragedy. 

At  the  risk  of  dwelling  on  what  is  already  obvious, 
let  us  notice  two  or  three  of  the  principles  that  are 
writ  large  in  the  story  of  the  Danite  hero,  that 
unheroic  judge  of  Israel.  Let  us  not  be  afraid  to 
notice,  first,  that  he  was  a  temperance  man,  in  days 
when  intemperance  was  the  rule.  He  was  a  total 
abstainer  amid  a  people  where  drunkenness  was  the 
undoing  of  a  multitude.  As  a  young  man  he  was 
pointed  out  as  exemplary;  as  one  who  stood  upon  a 
pledge,  whose  solemn  Nazirite  vow  placed  him  at 
once  beyond  the  common  temptations  of  his  fellows. 
And  from  many  a  temptation  it  did  deliver  him. 
But,  as  Milton  says: 

"  What  boots  it  at  one  gate  to  make  defence 
And  at  another  to  let  in  the  foe  ?  " 

It  was  a  worthy  prohibition,  and  it  is  needed  in 
our  day  even  more  than  it  was  in  his.  But  let 


With  Feet  of  Clay  77 

us  not  suppose  that  this  prohibition,  or  any  other 
single  prohibition,  is  going  to  put  us  or  any  other 
man  or  any  group  of  men  on  a  plane  of  comparative 
moral  safety.  Let  not  the  perfection  of  our  defence 
or  society's  defence,  at  this  point,  blind  us  to  the 
weakness  at  other  points  more  exposed.  Probably 
for  us  who  are  gathered  here,  taken  as  a  whole, 
there  is  no  one  of  the  great  temptations  that  is  less 
insidious  than  the  one  of  strong  drink.  Because 
at  that  point  we  are  so  well  guarded  by  training, 
by  habit,  by  prevalent  social  conditions,  by  self- 
respect.  But  any  one  who  has  lived  for  years  among 
Mohammedan  or  Buddhist  peoples,  where  drunken- 
ness is  practically  unknown,  realizes  only  too  keenly 
that  poor  human  nature,  in  spite  of  triumphant  pro- 
hibition at  one  point,  finds  other  ways  of  degrada- 
tion that  bring  about,  even  more  completely  than 
drink,  the  ruin  of  the  soul. 

You  and  I  cannot  be  honorable  men  without  many 
negative  virtues — without  many  hard  and  fast  pro- 
hibitions in  our  lives,  prohibitions  that  will  neces- 
sarily differ  with  different  men.  But  if  you  or  I  are 
leaning  hard  on  the  fact  that,  e.g.,  we  don't  swear, 
and  don't  smoke,  and  don't  gamble,  and  don't  drink, 
we  shall  find  some  day  that,  for  leaning  hard  upon, 
they  are  rotten  reeds  that  will  break  and  leave  us 
morally  in  the  mire.  We  cannot  live  nobly  without 
prohibitions;  but  a  character  built  up  of  prohibi- 


78  With  Feet  of  Clay 

tions  is  still  a  weak  and  unworthy  character  that 
is  likely  to  fall  like  the  house  founded  upon  the 
sands.  There  are  such  characters,  and  they  are 
wholly  exasperating  and  a  trifle  contemptible. 

You  see  of  course  what  I  mean.  For  any  strength 
or  completeness  of  character  there  must  be  devotion 
to  some  positive  constructive  principle,  such  as  Sam- 
son lacked.  There  must  be  the  positive  love  for 
what  is  true  and  honorable  and  of  good  repute, 
that  with  even  hand  makes  good  the  defence  against 
the  whole  circle  of  what  is  vicious,  or  base,  or  mean. 
The  need  for  that  conserving,  constructive  love 
takes  a  man  to  God.  In  the  case  of  Samson,  fidelity 
to  Jehovah  should  have  been  such  a  saving  principle ; 
it  would  have  been  worth  a  hundred  Nazirite  vows. 
As  it  was,  his  defence  was  like  that  of  some  Chinese 
forts  that  I  have  seen,  absolutely  impregnable  at 
one  point,  but  at  some  other  point,  behind  those 
bristling  Krupp  cannon,  lying  all  but  open  to  the 
enemy.  If  a  man  would  save  his  life  from  failure, 
he  must  have  in  it  the  great  constructive  force, 
operating  everywhere  and  always  along  the  line 
of  his  consciousness,  of  the  love  of  God,  of  self- 
committal  to  Him.  Then,  only,  will  he  be  sure 
that  there  is  no  unguarded  point. 

Again,  we  see  well  enough  in  Samson's  career 
the  product  of  a  life  whose  strength  is  sapped  by 
self-indulgence,  so  that  it  is  helpless  in  the  sight  of 


With  Feet  of  Clay  79 

pleasure.  We  see  in  him  a  man  who,  when  con- 
fronted by  any  fascinating  allurement,  could  see 
no  way  out  of  it  but  by  yielding.  The  stern  self- 
control,  built  up  by  years  of  resistance  to  petty 
gratifications,  that  could  say  peremptorily,  "  I  will 
not,"  he  never  could  fall  back  upon,  because  it  never 
was  his  own — he  had  never  earned  it.  When,  at 
Timnath,  vehement  fascination  blurred  all  the  nobler 
deeper  impulses  of  his  soul,  and  he  groped  about 
for  some  habit  of  action  that  would  still  enable  him 
to  be  true  to  the  best  when  he  could  no  longer  see 
or  feel  it,  he  groped  in  vain — there  was  no  such 
habit  there. 

Great  temptations  never  come  when  God  and 
heaven  and  the  heavenly  calling  are  quite  clear. 
They  would  not  be  great  temptations  if  they  did. 
A  great  allurement  confronts  us,  and  lo !  it  seems 
to  be  the  only  thing  on  the  horizon.  Pleasure  is 
before  us,  dazzling  as  the  sun,  and  all  else  is 
blurred,  and  indistinct,  and  far-away.  What  we 
believed  and  what  we  determined  last  Sunday  is 
vague  and  unreal  as  a  dream.  If,  then,  our  only 
fixed  habit  is  the  one  of  gratifying  any  insistent 
compelling  impulse,  we  shall  be  the  sport  of  the 
tempter,  helpless  as  thistledown  in  the  path  of  a 
tornado. 

If  we  could  only  see  the  working  of  this  law  in 
time!  For  the  failures  of  life,  the  great  tragedies 


8o  With  Feet  of  Clay 

and  the  dull,  prosaic,  mean  defeats,  are  the  plain 
fruits  of  the  habit  of  being  always  indulgent  with 
one's  self  in  little  things.  You  know  well  the  type 
of  characters  I  mean;  characters  that  a  dozen  times 
a  day  allow  themselves  the  gratification  that  is  just 
before  them,  simply  because  it  offers  the  path  of 
least  resistance  at  the  moment.  It  is  quite  possible, 
without  thinking,  to  drift  into  a  state  where  the 
pleasant  thing  to  eat,  the  pleasant  thing  to  wear, 
the  pleasant  place  to  go,  the  pleasant  thing  to  do, 
the  pleasant  book  to  read,  becomes  almost  our  in- 
variable choice,  whether  or  not  it  conflicts  with  our 
better  impulse;  because  at  that  precise  moment  we 
do  not  see  any  sufficiently  compelling  reason  why 
we  should  not  choose  it.  But  the  result  is  not  only 
that  the  pleasant  always  wins,  but  that  we  become 
helpless  to  resist  it — moral  weaklings. 

It  is  sober  truth  to  say  that  this  way  is  the  very 
descent  of  Avernus.  One  day  the  irresistible  pleas- 
ure will  be  one  that  can  be  had  only  at  a  cost — at 
a  cost  of  our  best  ambition,  even  sometimes  at  a 
cost  of  reputation  or  of  honor.  And  we  shall  be 
as  helpless  as  the  thousands  of  others,  for  whose 
presence  the  world  is  a  poorer  place  to-day.  If  we 
are  never  stern  with  ourselves  in  little  things,  where 
shall  we  find,  or  beg,  or  borrow,  the  stern  rectitude 
that  shall  hold  us  true  in  crucial  times  of  trial ! 

Samson's  high  calling  and  ambitions,  beginning 


With  Feet  of  Clay  81 

with  a  heavenly  brightness,  trailed  off  into  the 
muddy  ways  of  a  foolish  wastrel.  But  it  was  not 
of  purpose  or  any  evil  intent,  but  because  day  in  and 
day  out  his  highest  operative  ambition  was  the  love 
of  the  agreeable. 

It  is  but  one  more  step  to  notice  how  Samson 
lacked  any  ambition  worthy  of  his  strength.  He 
had  a  huge  endowment  of  power,  but  no  adequate 
ambition  to  control  it.  Like  an  ocean  steamer  with 
the  rudder  of  a  fishing  boat,  he  wallowed  in  the 
trough  of  life's  sea.  He  lacked  the  vision  of  the 
heroic  life!  And  for  the  lack  of  it  his  whole 
career,  so  far  as  we  know  it,  was  poor  and  mean 
and  purposeless.  If  once  there  had  dawned  upon 
him  the  nobility  and  heroism  of  a  life  that  should 
fulfil  his  ministry !  But  apparently  he  never  caught 
a  glimpse  of  it.  And  the  great  life,  self -controlled, 
of  one  who  should  live  for  others,  who  should  be 
the  deliverer  of  a  nation,  never  so  much  as  kindled 
his  imagination,  much  less  ruled  his  will. 

Here  is  the  tragedy  that  is  right  in  our  midst — 
of  which,  it  may  be,  we  are  a  part.  You  may  see 
the  pity  of  it  in  any  community  or  college ;  perhaps 
clearest  of  all  among  children,  when  choices  are 
easiest  to  make.  The  tragedy  of  lives  meant  to  be 
heroic,  started  to  be  heroic,  like  Samson's,  drifting 
on  into  poor,  commonplace,  limited  careers,  for 
which  the  world  will  never  be  the  better.  They 


82  With  Feet  of  Clay 

might  so  easily  be  great  and  noble ;  not  perhaps  for 
the  world  to  applaud,  but  really  great,  in  the  sight 
of  God,  with  a  greatness  never  to  fade  into  insig- 
nificance. And,  instead,  for  lack  of  a  great  com- 
pelling motive,  because  they  never  looked  steadily 
to  see  what  God  would  make  of  them,  they  never 
rise  to  heroism.  The  peril  that  made  shipwreck  of 
Samson  is  the  same  peril  that  haunts  our  way  to-day. 

Thank  God!  we  know  how  one  may  triumph 
over  it.  In  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ  we  see  clearly 
what  our  life  is  meant  to  be.  As  we  resolutely 
face  His  life,  and  think  upon  His  words,  we  find 
Him — not  as  a  matter  of  theory,  but  as  a  matter 
of  fact — actually  compelling  our  characters ;  putting 
our  daily  life  under  discipline  for  the  heroic;  giving 
us  self-mastery.  His  example  and  His  spirit  are  a 
light  like  noonday  upon  what  our  life  was  meant 
to  be.  Only  we  must  face  Him  and  His  thought 
for  us,  clear-eyed,  every  day;  and  we  shall  have 
an  ambition  even  greater  than  our  strength,  able 
to  grip  and  mould  and  ennoble  every  capacity  of 
our  being.  It  is  easier  for  us  to  look  away,  to 
forget,  to  befog  His  shining  presence,  and  so  follow 
our  own  way  with  ease,  drifting  with  Samson  to 
his  end.  In  spite  of  our  knowledge  of  Jesus  Christ, 
it  is  easy  for  us  also  to  lose  all  sight  of  the  heroic 
life. 

On  the  south  coast  of  England,  above  the  cliffs 


With  Feet  of  Clay  83 

of  the  Lizard,  stands  one  of  the  most  powerful  sea- 
lights  of  the  world.  Two  hundred  and  thirty  feet 
above  high  water  it  is,  and  with  an  electric  flash- 
light of  a  half  million  candle-power,  visible  for  over 
forty  miles.  And  yet,  several  years  ago,  the  Suevic, 
a  great  ocean  steamer,  loaded  with  passengers  and 
mails,  went  on  the  rocks  in  a  gale  of  wind,  just  at 
the  foot  of  that  towering  lighthouse,  somehow  fail- 
ing to  see  it  in  the  driving  mist. 

Even  in  such  a  community  as  this  we  may  miss 
the  sight  of  what  our  life  should  be — the  sight 
that  is  so  shining  clear.  We  must  needs  look  for  it. 
Day  by  day  we  must  invite  its  illumination  of  our 
soul.  It  is  the  heroic  vision  that  makes  the  heroic 
man,  and  still,  as  in  Paul's  day,  it  is  in  "  looking 
unto  Jesus  "  that  God's  heroes  overcome. 


VI 

The  Ancient  and  Honorable   Company 
of  the  Church 

"  The  church  of  the  living  God,  the  pillar  and  ground  of 
the  truth." — i  TIM.  3:15. 

JESUS  CHRIST  is  always  at  the  centre  of  the 
world's  strife.    He  is  the  Prince  of  Peace,  but 
He  said  that  He  came  to  bring  not  peace  on 
earth  but  a  sword.     His  presence  developed  here, 
and  has  roused  ever  since,  as  hot  and  malignant 
hatreds  as  the  human  heart  can  know.     And  the 
fight  against  those  old,  fierce,  inveterate  powers  of 
evil  is  the  hereditary  fight  and  obligation  of  His 
church. 

I  have  at  home  a  photograph  of  a  gale  at  sea, 
taken  from  the  Land's  End  in  England.  You  do 
not  notice  any  waves — the  ocean  surface  looks  flat 
and  beaten  down  by  the  weight  of  the  wind.  The 
waves  are  there,  sweeping  headlong  to  the  shore  with 
the  rush  of  the  Atlantic  behind  them;  but  unchecked 
and  unopposed,  their  power  does  not  betray  itself; 
their  headlong  course  has  something  of  the  deadly 

84 


Ancient  and  Honorable  Company        85 

smoothness  of  the  rapids  above  Niagara.  But  just 
in  the  foreground  stands  the  Longships  Lighthouse, 
rooted  in  the  living  granite  of  a  hidden  reef  of  rock, 
immovable  before  the  shock  of  these  titanic  forces ; 
and  there,  there  leaps  up  a  perpendicular  avalanche 
of  white,  a  hundred  feet  in  height,  burying  from 
sight  the  slender  column  of  masonry.  And  the 
waters  which  elsewhere  drive  past  so  silently  and 
unobserved  under  the  smother  of  white  foam, 
rage  and  howl  and  thunder  so  furiously  in  the 
rifts  and  chasms  of  the  ledge,  that  men  in  the 
lighthouse  are  said  to  have  gone  demented  with 
fear,  after  one  night  in  that  awful  maelstrom  of 
sound. 

It  is  a  fair  illustration  of  the  way  in  which 
Jesus  Christ  must  needs  stand  at  the  centre  of  the 
world's  strife.  If  He  be  thrust  into  the  mid-current 
of  human  selfishness  and  passion,  to  stand  immov- 
able for  the  righteousness  and  love  of  God,  He 
must  needs  feel  the  full  shock  and  fury  of  resistance 
that  such  a  stand  involves.  The  tide  of  human  in- 
terests might  seem  to  be  flowing  quietly  enough 
if  unopposed,  silent  and  deep  and  dangerous;  but 
with  that  fronting  presence  of  divine  rebuke  and 
opposition,  it  leaps  into  a  tumult  of  rebellious 
protest. 

You  may  talk  as  you  will  about  the  nobility  of 
human  nature  and  the  latent  goodness  in  all  men,  but 


86     Ancient  and  Honorable  Company 

if  you  will  effectively  oppose  even  a  single  one 
of  the  lower  vices  of  society,  as  did  Anthony  Corn- 
stock  or  Sergeant  Petrosini  in  New  York,  you  will 
find  yourself  assailed  with  a  murderous  hate  that 
will  shrink  from  no  crime  to  compass  your  defeat. 
There  is  still  a  multitude  of  men  and  women,  as  old 
Jonathan  Edwards  used  to  say,  who  would  kill  God 
if  they  could.  And  to  confront  them  vividly  and 
steadily  with  the  love  of  God,  so  much  more  piercing 
than  His  wrath,  or  with  His  insistent  righteousness, 
with  its  inexorable  demands,  is  still  to  feel  the  in- 
tensity of  their  opposition.  As  Paul  said,  "  They 
that  will  live  godly,  shall  suffer  persecution."  Even 
the  witness  of  a  godly  life  is  a  challenge  to  the 
active  enmity  of  many  minds. 

You  may  seek  out  a  sequestered  corner,  like  this 
of  ours,  where  all  this  is  like  a  tale  of  arctic  storms 
told  in  a  summer  garden ;  but  we  cannot  live  always 
in  quiet  waters.  Out  into  the  swirling  current  we 
must  go,  and  there  find  and  show  what  mettle  we 
are  of. 

I  would  have  you  notice  now  where  the  Christian 
Church  stands  among  the  "  many  waters  "  of  man- 
kind,— for  that  oft-recurring  phase  of  the  New 
Testament  is  only  a  vivid  metaphor  for  the  eternally 
shifting  and  seething  masses  of  society.  Jesus 
Christ,  as  the  revelation  of  God's  will  among  men, 


Ancient  and  Honorable  Company        87 

stood  at  the  centre  of  strife.  The  waves  of  passion- 
ate refusal  and  resistance  met  about  Him,  rolled 
over  Him,  bruised  and  beat  Him  down  to  death. 
But,  risen  and  triumphing,  He  still  stands  at  the 
heart  of  the  great  struggle — the  good  fight  of  all 
good  fights  on  earth.  And  in  each  generation  the 
church,  the  federation  and  organization  of  His  loyal 
disciples  and  followers,  has,  of  necessity,  inherited 
the  glory  and  the  peril  of  that  strife;  has  had  to 
be  His  voice,  His  witness,  amid  the  babel  of 
worldly  outcries.  With  all  its  weakness  and  im- 
purities, it  has  nevertheless  remained  the  fellowship 
of  those  battling  for  their  life,  and  for  the  lives  of 
others,  in  loyalty  to  that  Lord  and  Master;  and  as 
such  the  New  Testament  did  not  fear  to  call  it  the 
"  church  of  the  living  God  " — let  who  will  revile 
it  or  despise  it — the  "  pillar  and  ground  of  the 
truth." 

Not  of  all  truth,  for  the  church  has  always  walked 
as  in  a  labyrinth  of  ignorance  and  error  regarding 
many  things!  But  of  the  one  superb  redeeming 
truth,  that  it  had  seen  the  glory  of  God  in  the  face 
of  Jesus  Christ.  And  that  company  of  men  and 
women,  so  fallible  and  frail,  is  further  called  the 
"  body  of  Jesus  Christ."  A  body  still  vulnerable, 
still  on  earth,  still  exposed  to  abuse  and  injury  and 
suffering,  as  the  thousands  went  down  to  torture  and 
to  death,  and  the  long  roll  of  the  witnessing  martyrs 


88      Ancient  and  Honorable  Company 

was  built  up;  but  suffering  on  His  behalf,  enduring 
hardness  under  His  leadership. 

It  has  never  been  a  fraternity  of  wise  men,  whom 
you  could  not  ridicule;  or  a  company  of  saints  whom 
you  could  not  criticise.  It  has  always  been  what  it 
was  in  Jesus'  day  or  in  Paul's,  a  very  humble  and 
fallible  fellowship,  of  men  and  women  being  saved 
from  what  they  were.  Jesus  was  patient  with  its 
occasional  conceit  and  pettiness,  and  Paul  gave  his 
life  to  it,  though  he  knew,  far  better  than  any  clever 
journalist  to-day,  how  pathetic  were  its  weaknesses. 
It  has  always  had  the  defects  inseparable  from  a 
membership  of  common  men  and  not  of  angels. 
Yet  it  has  always  stood,  perforce,  like  its  Leader, 
at  the  heart  of  the  world's  strife.  It  has  always 
been  a  fighting  church;  the  ancient  and  honorable 
company  of  those  who  would  make  head  against  a 
world  in  arms.  It  has  never  been  a  body  of  cravens, 
or  of  invalids,  or  weaklings. 

No  fighting  regiment  in  the  world's  armies  to- 
day, proud  of  its  long,  long  record  of  gallantry  on 
many  fields,  in  many  lands,  with  its  sheaves  of 
tattered  regimental  colors,  has  a  tithe  of  the  record, 
or  should  have  a  tithe  of  the  pride,  that  we  have 
to-day  in  the  inheritance  of  the  pride  and  glory  of  a 
fighting  regiment — a  church  militant — that  has  stood 
shoulder  to  shoulder  about  its  Leader  for  nineteen 
hundred  years.  One  can  easily  affect  to  be  superior 


Ancient  and  Honorable  Company        89 

to  it,  to  despise  it :  can  easily  join  in  the  old  sneers, 
as  old  as  the  apostles,  about  its  timidity  and  selfish- 
ness; but  no  man  who  would  not  display  his  igno- 
rance can  deny  that  it  has  led  a  glorious  fight- 
ing life  down  to  the  present  day,  against  every 
form  of  intrenched  evil  that  it  has  come  to  recog- 
nize. 

It  has  often  been  slow  to  recognize  its  duty ;  and 
portions  of  the  church  have  sometimes  been  blinded 
as  to  a  moral  issue;  as  so  many  were  blinded  to 
the  deep  wrong  of  slavery,  in  the  twenty  years  be- 
fore 1 86 1.  But  the  mere  fact  that  its  members 
are  honestly  seeking,  for  their  very  life's  sake,  to 
keep  in  touch  with  Jesus  Christ  and  to  do  His  will, 
means  that  sooner  or  later  they  come  out  into  the 
light  and  follow  His  leadership  in  spite  of  every 
confusing  or  opposing  influence  on  earth.  And  so 
it  will  be  in  these  new  industrial  and  social  problems 
of  our  generation.  It  will  not  follow  the  leaders  of 
the  hour,  each  so  sure  of  his  own  programme,  and 
each  so  indignant  that  the  church  will  not  make  it 
its  own.  But  as  light  comes  it  will  assuredly  follow 
the  Great  Leader  and  Friend  of  men,  who  can  guide 
His  people  through  the  twentieth  century  as  surely 
as  through  the  third  or  the  sixteenth. 

A  great  many  people  will  always  be  critical  and 
sarcastic  because  the  church  cannot  be  used  as  an 
organization  to  undertake  this  reform  or  that,  and 


90      Ancient  and  Honorable  Company 

to  carry  it  out — the  prohibition  movement,  or  suf- 
frage movement,  or  some  new  campaign  for  clean 
politics  or  social  purity  or  international  peace,  or 
the  elimination  of  business  competition.  And  others 
are  restless  because  the  church  will  not  use  its 
authority  and  organization  directly  to  create  and 
administer  this  or  that  department  of  civic  charity 
or  philanthropy — free  baths,  public  parks  and  gal- 
leries, juvenile  courts,  and  so  on,  in  unending 
variety. 

But  the  church  is  and  always  has  been  for  the 
inspiration  of  the  individual  in  the  spirit  of  Christ, 
which  is  the  very  essence  of  the  spirit  of  social 
service;  so  as  to  send  him  out  in  that  spirit  to  play 
his  part  in  all  these  various  relationships  of  philan- 
thropy and  reform;  to  inspire  them,  and  to  create 
them,  and  to  carry  them  on  to  success,  in  politics, 
and  civic  reform,  and  every  phase  of  humanitarian 
effort.  There  was  an  age  in  which  the  church 
took  these  things  into  its  own  hands,  to  enforce 
them  by  its  authority,  and  carry  them  on  through 
its  own  organization,  and  compel  their  success  by 
weight  of  its  prestige.  And  that  age  was  the  poor- 
est age  that  Christendom  has  ever  seen. 

It  is  not  so  that  the  church  carries  on  its  great 
warfare.  It  strikes  at  the  centre  of  disease — at  the 
sin  that  "  weakens  all  the  fine  humanities  of  our 
nature,"  and  works  out  into  ever-changing  mani- 


Ancient  and  Honorable  Company        91 

festations  of  social  wrong  and  selfishness.  And  it 
inspires  not  with  a  programme  but  with  a  divine 
eternal  life,  that  is  always  laboring  to  seek  out 
human  needs  and  bring  joy  where  misery  has  been 
supreme.  So  if  you  will  look  anywhere  in  the 
world  to-day  you  will  find  the  church  behind  the 
active  fighting  agencies  for  human  good,  wherever 
those  agencies  demand,  not  only  machinery,  but 
sacrifice  of  money  and  of  life. 

It  is  behind  the  hospitals  of  New  York  or  Labra- 
dor or  China,  the  leper  asylums  all  over  the  Orient, 
the  orphanages  and  rescue  homes  past  counting  in  all 
lands.  It  is  in  the  schools,  and  training  institutes, 
and  colleges,  wherever  civilization  has  not  yet  pro- 
vided them ;  in  homes  and  clubs  for  seamen  and  sol- 
diers an d  railroad  men,  wherever  the  tempted  con- 
gregate ;  in  Young  Men's  Christian  Associations  and 
Young  Women's  Christian  Associations  in  the  cities 
of  the  world  where  men  and  women  need  a  helping 
hand;  in  a  hundred  forms  of  settlement  work  and 
social  and  welfare  work  and  mission  work;  in  the 
world-wide  fight  against  opium  and  whiskey,  in 
anti-saloon  work,  and  the  struggle  against  the  white 
slave  traffic,  and  the  black  slave  traffic  in  Africa  or 
on  the  Congo,  against  child  labor,  and  sweat-shop 
cruelty,  and  graft  in  politics,  and  so  on  and  on. 
As  the  spirit  of  Jesus  continually  reveals  itself  to 
His  disciples,  the  fellowship  of  believers  in  Him, 


92      Ancient  and  Honorable  Company 

animated  by  His  love,  becomes  the  great  fighting 
body  of  the  world — greater  than  all  its  armies ;  with 
endless  money  behind  it,  and  uncounted  lives,  and  a 
devotion  that  lives  and  burns  to-day  as  glowingly 
as  it  used  to  live  and  burn  in  Rome  of  the  Caesars, 
when  Paul  nursed  the  flame.  The  church  of  the 
living  God  is  still  the  church  militant,  the  church 
at  war. 

Men  and  women  of  this  spirit  have  always  wanted 
to  get  together,  that  together  they  might  nourish 
the  flame  of  love  and  devotion.  It  so  easily  dies 
down!  Our  enthusiasms  unsupported  so  quickly 
cool  and  die.  You  could  not  keep  apart  those  one 
hundred  and  twenty  men  and  women  who  met  after 
Jesus'  death  in  an  upper  room  in  Jerusalem.  The 
work  they  had  to  do,  the  burden  they  had  to  bear, 
was  too  great  for  them  to  do  or  bear  scattered 
singly  and  unaided  in  their  homes. 

Without  organization  any  great  cause  languishes. 
When  Japan  was  standing  against  Russia  for  its 
national  life,  you  might  as  well  have  expected  it 
to  win  by  turning  loose  a  half  million  men  on 
the  shore  of  Korea,  each  bearing  a  sword  or  rifle 
as  he  saw  fit,  and  each  going  his  own  way  inde- 
pendently, to  overthrow  the  enemy,  as  to  expect  the 
great  fellowship  of  the  disciples  of  Christ  to  fight 
effectively  the  good  fight,  without  close  ties  of 
loyalty  and  discipline  and  organization.  So  there 


Ancient  and  Honorable  Company        93 

has  always  been,  not  a  loose  multitude  of  believers 
in  Jesus,  but  a  church  of  Christ,  holding  closely 
together  to  nourish  the  flame  of  divine  love  among 
men  for  the  sake  of  the  race, — men  and  women  knit 
together  by  a  great  need,  a  great  gratitude,  and  a 
heavenly  ambition,  with  Christ  at  the  centre  of  the 
deathless  fellowship. 

Where  do  you  stand  in  relation  to  it?  Christ 
loved  the  church  and  gave  Himself  for  it!  Is  it 
your  clear  purpose  to  be  loyal  to  it  till  death?  To 
build  your  life  into  it  to  the  last  ounce  of  its  vital 
energy,  as  millions  have  done  of  the  world's  saints 
and  noblest  servants? 

It  would  seem  that  the  church  would  be  a  better 
church  were  it  not  so  generously  humble;  if  it  did 
not  invite  to  itself  such  utterly  unfinished  and  im- 
perfect men;  if  it  did  not  so  freely  receive  ordinary 
half -developed  characters  like  ourselves — men  and 
women  half-Christian,  half-selfish,  half-believing, 
half-doubting ;  unstable,  like  Peter,  and  with  clinging 
evil  elements  left  over  from  the  old  life.  It  might 
be  a  better  church  if  it  were  reserved  for  the  noble 
souls,  and  great  souls,  and  clean  and  devoted  souls 
of  our  generation.  But  it  is  magnificent  in  its 
graciousness.  It  welcomes  all  who  would  be  loyal 
to  the  Master — who  would  escape  their  meaner 
selves  through  His  love  and  help.  We  cannot  blame 
it  or  its  Master  for  welcoming  such  as  we  so  freely, 


94      Ancient  and  Honorable  Company 

if  we  will  only  cleave  to  Him,  and  fight  the 
good  fight  of  His  faith.  It  must  needs  have 
many  imperfect  soldiers  in  it  if  it  enrolls  such 
material. 

But  such  as  it  is,  what  place  do  you  give  it? 
Is  it  possible  that  any  of  us  should  be  not  loyal 
to  the  last  red  drop  of  blood,  but  loftily  superior, 
condescending,  contemptuous?  Can  you  imagine  a 
man  honestly  desirous  not  only  to  plough  his  lonely 
furrow  through  life,  but  to  throw  in  his  life  with 
all  who  will  stand  together  resolutely  for  great 
ends,  and  yet  turning  away  from  this  ancient  and 
honorable  company,  covertly  sneering  at  its  humble 
folk  and  their  old  fashions  and  their  unadaptability 
to  modern  ways?  Can  you  draw  the  line  between 
loyalty  to  the  great  Captain  and  Master,  and  loyalty 
to  the  world-wide  family  of  those  who  love  Him 
and  bear  His  name? 

If  you  will  imagine  what  this  State  of  California 
would  be  without  the  church  as  a  centre  of  organized 
Christian  opinion  and  effort  in  its  midst,  what  any 
of  our  large  towns  would  be  if  all  the  churches  were 
withdrawn,  you  can  understand  what  so  clear- 
headed a  man  as  Dr.  C.  R.  Brown  meant  when  he 
said  that  "  the  man  who  stays  outside  the  church 
on  the  theory  that  he  can  be  just  as  good  a  Christian 
without  assuming  the  responsibilities  of  church 
membership,  is  a  coward  and  a  shirk."  It  is  as- 


Ancient  and  Honorable  Company       95 

suredly  clear  that  there  are  good  men  outside  the 
church;  but  it  is  very  far  from  clear  that  you  will 
be  a  good  man  if  you  refuse  for  yourself  so  plain 
a  step  of  loyalty  to  Jesus  Christ,  your  Master,  as 
to  ally  yourself  with  the  fellowship  of  His  confessed 
servants. 

You  sometimes  hear  men  speak  as  though  the 
Christian  Association  were  somehow  a  more  satis- 
factory organization  than  the  church,  and  as  though 
membership  in  it  might  fairly  take  the  place  of  alle- 
giance to  the  broader,  world-wide,  life-long  fellow- 
ship of  all  disciples.  They  forget  how  utterly  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  and  the  Young 
Women's  Christian  Association  are  the  creation  and 
child  of  the  church;  how  the  church  wrought  them 
out,  and  brought  them  forward  into  strength,  and 
backs  them  everywhere  with  men  and  money  and 
sympathy,  guiding  and  inspiring  them  with  that 
noble  international  committee  of  churchmen  as  the 
centre  of  the  complex  machinery.  It  is  the  church 
that  lives  and  moves  and  works  through  the  Christ- 
ian Associations  in  every  city  in  alm(ost  every  land 
to-day,  and  without  the  church  they  would  be  dead 
in  a  night,  as  if  stricken  with  the  plague. 

And  we  forget  also  how  some  day,  looking  back 
on  life  from  the  far  limit  of  seventy  years,  even 
these  full  four  years  of  Association  life  and  in- 
fluence will  appear  only  as  a  quick-passing  half -hour 


96      Ancient  and  Honorable  Company 

in  the  long,  arduous  day  of  a  completed  life.  But 
the  fellowship  of  the  church,  our  mothers'  church 
and  the  church  of  our  fathers,  meets  us  in  our 
infancy,  follows  our  boyhood,  calls  to  us  through 
manhood  in  the  trumpet-tones  of  the  summons  to 
bravery  of  service,  comforts  and  sustains  us  through 
losses  and  sorrows  as  years  multiply,  and  upholds 
us  even  in  old  age  on  the  broad,  strong  current  of 
Christian  sympathy  and  overcoming  faith  and  min- 
istering love. 

And  when  I  say  to  myself,  "  The  church  is  not 
as  influential  as  it  should  be,  and  is  not  as  pure 
as  it  should  be,"  I  turn  and  ask  myself,  "  Are  you 
doing  the  part  of  a  true  man  in  helping  to  make 
it  pure  and  influential?  Have  you  ever  come  up 
under  your  share  of  responsibility  for  its  life?  Are 
you  contributing  to  its  support,  or  do  you  leave 
altogether  to  others  the  duty  of  maintaining  its 
helpfulness,  that  has  meant  so  much  to  you  already? 
Are  you  helping  to  make  it  pure,  and  worthy,  and 
influential — are  you  treating  it  as  you  would  wish 
its  great  Head  and  Master  to  find  you  treating  it, 
were  He  to  make  sudden  inquiry  of  your  atti- 
tude?" 

Not  all  of  us  are  worthy  to  enter  into  the  humble 
fellowship  of  the  men  and  women  who  would  make 
their  life  one  of  reverent  gratitude  and  love  to 
God  their  Saviour.  But  for  as  many  as  hope  to 


Ancient  and  Honorable  Company        97 

join  one  day  in  the  great  song  of  the  church  tri- 
umphant, "  Unto  Him  that  loveth  us  and  loosed 
us  from  our  sins  by  His  blood,"  the  clear,  pene- 
trating call  is  that  to-day  we  should  be  found  true 
and  loyal  to  the  hard-pressed,  ever-battling  company 
of  the  church  militant. 


VII 
The  Obedience  of  Jesus 

"  Obedient  even  unto  death" — PHIL.  2:8. 

IN  June,  1893,  the  Mediterranean  squadron  of 
the  British  fleet  was  manoeuvring  off  Tripoli. 
The  vessels  were  proceeding  in  a  double  column, 
twelve  hundred  yards  apart,  under  command  of 
Admiral  Tryon  on  the  Victoria.  At  a  certain  point 
the  admiral  signalled  for  both  columns  to  reverse 
their  course  by  turning  inwards.  It  was  instantly 
pointed  out  to  the  admiral,  by  the  captain  of  the 
Victoria,  that  this  was  an  impossible  manoeuvre, 
inasmuch  as  the  ironclads  could  not  turn  in  less 
than  six  hundred  yards,  and  that  the  Victoria  would 
be  risking  collision  with  the  Camperdown,  the  lead- 
ing warship  of  the  other  column.  Three  times  Cap- 
tain Bourke  remonstrated,  and  the  Camperdown 
also  signalled  for  further  instructions.  But  the 
order  stood. 

Both  vessels  began  turning  at  the  same  time,  and 
with  breathless  anxiety  and  horror  the  whole  fleet 
looked  on  at  the  tragedy  that  followed.  The  two 

98 


The  Obedience  of  Jesus  99 

men-of-war  drew  nearer,  faced  the  danger,  struggled 
too  late  to  check  their  way,  and  came  together,  the 
great  steel  ram  of  the  Camper  down  tearing  out  the 
side  of  her  consort,  which  began  to  heel  over  and 
sink  almost  immediately.  Perfect  order  was  main- 
tained, and  the  swarms  of  men  went  down  to  their 
death  like  heroes.  But  more  than  half  of  the 
Victoria's  six  hundred  men  were  drowned  before 
their  companions's  eyes  within  fifteen  minutes. 

None  will  ever  know  what  was  in  the  admiral's 
mind,  whether  perhaps  it  had  suddenly  failed  him 
for  a  few  moments,  for  he  went  down  with  his  ship, 
remorsefully  refusing  all  help  until  the  last.  But 
when  the  court-martial  was  held  in  England  upon 
the  captains  who  carried  out  the  fatal  manoeuvre 
in  obedience  to  orders,  and  who  were  furiously 
blamed  for  so  doing,  England  refused  in  any  wise 
to  censure  them,  because  "  it  is  not  in  the  best 
interests  of  the  service  to  blame  them  for  obedience 
to  their  commander-in-chief ."  The  whole  efficiency 
of  the  navy  and  the  whole  stability  of  the  empire 
rested  upon  unquestioning  obedience  to  a  superior's 
orders ;  and  even  the  lives  of  the  three  hundred  and 
fifty  men  were  not  too  great  a  price  to  pay  for  the 
unhesitating  maintenance  of  that  first  essential  of 
national  greatness. 

We  are  apt  to  think  as  children  that  obedience  is 
a  virtue  required  of  us  only,  but  that  as  we  grow 


ioo  The  Obedience  of  Jesus 

up  to  the  pleasant  freedom  of  men  and  women  we 
become  independent  and  may  do  as  we  please.  Alas, 
for  our  childish  hopes  of  independence!  They  are 
never  realized,  unless  we  go  the  fool's  way,  to  our 
own  undoing.  Rather  do  we  come  to  see  that 
nothing  noble,  nothing  great,  nothing  enduring  can 
be  built  up  without  obedience,  subordination,  to 
some  greater  controlling  and  directing  mind.  An 
army  without  subordination  is  a  mob.  A  republic 
without  obedience  is  a  chaos  of  license  and  cor- 
ruption. A  life  without  obedience  is  a  life  without 
character  or  purpose.  Some  people  instinctively 
rebel  against  the  idea  of  authority,  and  cripple  their 
lives  by  their  self-will;  but  unless  we  are  as  wise 
as  God,  and  as  good  as  our  Heavenly  Father,  we 
must  be  grateful  for  a  better  will  than  ours  to  guide 
us  and  control. 

And  so  we  may  say  truly  that  the  first  of  all 
virtues  is  the  virtue  of  obedience.  It  lies  behind 
all  others,  in  the  building  up  of  a  character  or  an 
empire.  And  if  no  nation  can  achieve  greatness 
without  this  self-control  of  subordination  permeat- 
ing its  people,  no  more  can  so  great  an  enterprise 
as  the  Kingdom  of  God  be  carried  on  without  it. 
Jesus  came  to  establish  the  Kingdom  of  God  on 
earth — to  set  it  on  its  glorious,  endless  way.  And 
He  lived,  Himself,  under  the  terms  of  this  inex- 
orable demand  for  unquestioning  obedience.  He 


The  Obedience  of  Jesus  101 

lived  in  this  respect  as  you  and  I  must  live,  if  we 
are  to  build  up  instead  of  break  down  the  kingdom. 
He  left  us  an  example,  that  we  should  follow  His 
steps;  Himself  not  always  understanding,  not  fore- 
seeing the  future,  but  trusting  the  wisdom  of  His 
Father's  will  and  minding  it,  as  a  child  minds,  who 
is  not  wise  enough  to  act  alone. 

Does  this  seem  to  you  at  all  incongruous  with  the 
character  of  Him  who  was  called  the  Son  of  God? 
If  so,  it  is  because  we  have  allowed  ourselves  to 
forget  the  unmistakable  picture  drawn  by  the  New 
Testament  of  His  humanity.  It  is  not  that  of  a  con- 
scious God,  originating  His  own  purposes,  or  shar- 
ing, as  with  a  co-equal  will  and  understanding,  the 
thoughts  and  purposes  of  the  Father.  Jesus  plainly 
represents  Himself  as  a  man  under  orders,  in  sub- 
ordination to  the  will  of  another.  "  My  Father," 
He  said,  "  is  greater  than  I.  The  words  I  speak 
to  you  are  not  mine,  but  his.  It  is  he  who  works 
the  powers  that  appear  through  me.  I  keep  his 
commandments.  I  do  always  the  things  that  are 
pleasing  in  his  sight.  It  is  his  will,  not  mine,  that 
I  seek  when  the  way  is  doubtful.  Therefore  doth 
the  Father  love  me,  because  I  keep  his  command- 
ments." 

That  is  a  very  clear  picture  of  a  Leader  who 
set  the  example  to  all  His  followers,  of  a  man 
under  authority,  listening  for  instructions,  and 


IO2  The  Obedience  of  Jesus 

carrying  them  out  faithfully  wherever  they  might 
lead. 

Notice  how  naturally  and  how  gradually  He  came 
to  be  the  most  obedient  among  all  the  sons  of  men. 
He  did  not,  at  the  beginning  of  His  life,  acknowl- 
edge and  accept  for  Himself  the  whole  plan  of  God 
for  His  thirty  years,  that  should  make  Him  a  man 
of  sorrows  and  bring  Him  to  an  early  death.  "  He 
learned  obedience " — so  says  the  writer  of  He- 
brews— "  by  the  things  that  He  suffered."  He  did 
not  anticipate  the  soul-struggle  of  Gethsemane  when 
He  was  a  little  lad  of  six.  Instead,  He  played  about 
the  courtyard  and  in  and  out  of  His  father's  shop, 
a  perfect  child  among  children,  merry  in  the  sun- 
shine ;  but  even  then  attentive  to  His  mother's  voice, 
obedient  and  honorable  in  the  little  obligations  that 
a  child  of  six  must  carry.  The  mysterious  call  of 
the  deep  plans  of  God  for  the  salvation  of  mankind 
reached  Him  then  only  as  Joseph  called  from  the 
workshop  or  Mary  from  the  latticed  window.  But 
it  was  divine,  the  way  in  which  He  answered — as 
boys  and  girls  to-day  may  touch  the  godlike  in  the 
way  they  meet  their  parents'  wish. 

Later,  it  is  evident  that  He  was  thinking  much 
on  God's  plans  for  His  life,  and  was  searching  to 
know  how  best  He  could  be  about  His  Father's 
business.  You  remember  how  this  puzzling  search 
led  Him  to  the  temple  when  He  was  but  twelve; 


The  Obedience  of  Jesus  103 

and  then  led  Him  submissively  back  to  His  country 
home,  there  to  be  subject  to  His  parents. 

And  when  He  had  come  to  be  about  thirty  years 
old,  He  was  well-skilled  in  a  perfect,  sympathetic 
obedience,  when  the  call  came  to  Him  to  drop  the 
tools  of  an  artisan  and  go  out  among  the  world 
of  men.  Even  then  the  way  was  not  one  of  un- 
troubled clearness !  Clouds  and  darkness  were 
round  it  at  the  very  beginning,  when  the  adversary 
sought  to  confuse  Him  and  mislead  Him,  and  when 
He  could  only  wait  for  God,  as  did  tempted  saints 
of  old.  He  prayed  there  in  the  desert,  that  He 
might  see  light,  and  that  He  might  be  strong  to 
follow  it.  And  as  He  saw  it,  He  was  obedient  to 
the  heavenly  vision. 

So  the  common  days  came  and  went — the  happy 
expectant  days  of  His  ministry  in  Galilee,  when  the 
multitudes  followed  Him,  and  when  He  could  go 
about  doing  good,  following  His  heart's  desire.  Yet 
even  in  these  days  He  sought  not  His  own  will  but 
the  will  of  Him  that  sent  Him.  Often  He  rose  up 
before  day  to  talk  with  His  Father,  long  and  undis- 
turbed, that  He  might  better  understand  His  will. 
So  that  when  the  shadow  began  to  close  down  upon 
His  life,  and  He  came  to  realize  that  His  way 
was  leading  inevitably  to  an  abyss  of  failure  and 
shame  and  distress,  He  obeyed  still,  as  readily  as 
when  a  child.  And  so  was  found  at  the  end  "  obe- 


104  The  Obedience  of  Jesus 

dient  even  unto  death."  And  if  He  is  the  Captain 
of  our  salvation  to-day,  and  a  Saviour  even  for 
the  ends  of  the  earth,  it  is  because  He  was  Him- 
self made  perfect  in  obedience  by  suffering. 

I  am  sure  there  is  none  here  who  can  miss  the 
lesson  of  these  facts.  We  do  not  consider  them 
for  their  academic  or  historic  interest,  but  because 
they  are  of  vital  concern  to  every  one  of  us.  We 
also,  like  Jesus,  find  ourselves  here  for  a  few  years 
among  men,  set  among  innumerable  perplexities  and 
possibilities,  to  overcome,  or  to  be  overcome;  to 
win  our  way  through  with  joy  at  the  end,  or  to 
come  to  our  last  day  with  disappointment  and  in 
fear.  Our  career  is  not  of  such  consequence  to 
the  world  as  was  that  of  Jesus,  but  to  us  it  is  of 
pathetic,  infinite  concern.  Not  all  the  universe  is 
of  such  overwhelming  moment  to  us  as  is  the  ques- 
tion whether  we  win  or  lose,  whether  our  lives 
are  found  worthy  or  worthless  in  the  great  ap- 
praisal. 

And  in  the  career  of  Jesus  we  see  the  factors  of 
our  own  destiny  writ  large.  The  essential  condi- 
tions of  our  own  struggle  are  there  set  forth  in 
heroic  size.  And  if  for  Him,  the  Leader,  obedience 
was  the  first  condition  of  success,  how  much  more 
for  us  who  follow.  If  He  who  was  the  mighty  and 
sinless  One  had  need  to  wait  daily  upon  the  wiil 
of  God,  how  ever  shall  we  find  our  way  througii 


The  Obedience  of  Jesus  105 

life's  labyrinthine  temptations  by  our  own  strength 
and  wisdom!  Illusion  is  all  about  us!  There  is 
a  way  that  seemeth  right  unto  a  man,  but  the  end 
of  that  way  is  death.  How  shall  we  know?  How 
shall  we  save  ourselves  from  the  choices  that  will 
one  day  cover  us  with  confusion? 

If  Jesus  had  miscalculated,  there  in  the  desert, 
if  He  had  sought  to  save  His  life  and  His  future 
work  by  making  bread  so  that  He  might  not  die 
there  of  starvation,  He  would  have  made  shipwreck 
of  His  career,  as  men  are  making  shipwreck  of  their 
lives  about  us  every  day.  But  He  held  inflexibly 
to  His  Father's  will,  obeying  where  He  could  not 
see.  There  is  no  other  certain  hope  for  us.  It 
cannot  be  in  occasional  efforts  at  obedience,  at  cer- 
tain crises,  where  we  are  afraid  to  go  alone:  in 
experiments  with  it,  when  we  are  in  certain  moods. 
That  is  worthless.  It  is  only  in  the  simple  yet  tre- 
mendous choice  of  the  will  of  God  for  our  life — 
a  choice  as  deep  as  the  unexplored  depths  of  our 
soul — not  for  a  day,  but  forever;  not  in  one  thing, 
but  in  every  experience  of  life  and  death. 

It  was  so  that  Jesus  obeyed.  And  yet  a  child 
can  do  that.  A  weak  and  tempted  man  can  do  it. 
As  surely  as  God  is  in  us,  we  can  make  such  a 
choice.  We  may  falter  at  times,  we  may  be  shaken 
to  and  fro  as  roughly  as  the  shipwrecked  sailor 
being  drawn  ashore  in  the  life-buoy  is  battered  by 


106  The  Obedience  of  Jesus 

the  waves;  but  the  life-line  does  not  break.  We 
shall  never  utterly  let  go;  because  such  a  choice, 
born  of  God,  is  renewed  by  Him  again  and  again,  as 
day  follows  day.  But  there  is  no  other  choice  that 
will  lead  us  home — no  other  than  obedience.  It 
made  of  Jesus  a  perfect  Saviour.  It  will  make  us 
also  ready  and  perfect  for  the  mission  on  which 
God  would  send  us,  whether  it  be  to  the  end  of 
the  world,  or  whether  it  hems  us  in  to  a  cottage  and 
a  kitchen,  or  shuts  us  up  to  the  tiny  ignoble  king- 
dom of  an  invalid's  room. 

We  need  to  notice  two  things  about  this  tri- 
umphant obedience  of  Jesus.  It  was  for  Him  a  way 
of  confidence,  and  a  way  of  joy.  It  is  cruelly  hard 
to  obey,  if  you  have  not  confidence  in  the  one  who 
commands — if  you  are  not  sure  that  his  order  is 
completely  wise.  It  was  a  fearful  predicament  in 
which  Captain  Bourke  was  placed,  with  his  superior 
officer  facing  him  there  on  the  bridge,  and  yet  with 
the  sickening  fear  that  the  admiral  was  blindly  send- 
ing them  to  death.  It  must  have  been  with  a  bitter 
heart  that  the  Earl  of  Cardigan,  at  Balaklava,  led 
his  beloved  brigade  of  cavalry  on  that  wild,  futile 
charge  that  left  it  a  pitiful  remnant  of  its  former 
strength. 

And  had  Jesus  been  compelled  to  walk  that  last 
twelve  months,  steadily  toward  the  cross,  with  the 
slightest  doubt  as  to  His  Father's  perfect  wisdom 


The  Obedience  of  Jesus  107 

and  perfect  love,  it  would  have  been  a  hopeless  task. 
But  He  was  unafraid.  There  could  be  no  mistake. 
However  His  spirit  might  recoil,  His  confidence 
in  His  Father's  leading  was  complete.  He  did  pray 
that  the  cup  might  not  be  so  bitter,  but  only  if  His 
Father  should  will  it  so.  He  trusted  Him. 

We  cannot  hope  for  any  better  fortune.  We  can- 
not obey,  in  the  long  run,  without  a  perfect  con- 
fidence that  we  are  safe  in  doing  so,  and  only  safe 
as  we  obey.  We  can  only  accept  God's  will  as  we 
are  satisfied  that  it  knows  us  perfectly,  and  knows 
whither  it  is  sending  us,  and  sends  us  there  in  sym- 
pathy and  love.  It  is  not  enough  to  tell  us,  as  did 
some  of  the  divines  of  a  century  ago,  that  God  is 
sovereign,  and  that  His  sovereign  will  must  be 
enough  for  us,  even  though  it  decrees  our  temporal 
and  eternal  sorrow.  The  remnants  of  such  hideous 
fears  still  cling  to  men.  They  paralyze  obedience. 
We  need  to  trust  in  God  as  the  little  daughter  trusts 
her  father,  knowing  instinctively  that  he  loves  her 
better  than  his  life,  and  that  he  only  seeks  her  hap- 
piness :  so  that  what  God  chooses  for  us,  we  know 
He  chooses  as  the  true  lover  of  our  souls,  and  with 
a  perfect  comprehension  of  our  needs  and  our 
capacities. 

It  is  not  so  that  we  often  think  of  God.  We 
fear  to  submit  ourselves  absolutely  to  His  will,  lest 
it  should  ask  of  us  something  extravagant  or  beyond 


io8  The  Obedience  of  Jesus 

our  power,  something  too  hard  or  disappointing  or 
painful  for  us  ever  to  choose. 

Certain  college  fraternities  have  sometimes  de- 
manded of  candidates  for  initiation  that  for  several 
days  they  should  obey  any  order  laid  upon  them; 
and  so  you  might  see  men  on  the  streets  of  the  col- 
lege town  going  through  the  most  ridiculous  or 
humiliating  performances.  Men  often  treat  God  as 
though  He  would  deal  with  them  in  this  irrational 
fashion  if  they  once  gave  themselves  up  absolutely 
to  His  control.  They  are  afraid  of  what  they  might 
be  asked  to  do.  They  fear  that  God  may  give  them 
His  orders  through  dreams,  or  angels,  or  sudden 
strange  impressions,  without  consulting  them,  or  first 
referring  His  bidding  to  their  judgment,  and  that 
so  some  astonishing  and  over-exacting  task  might  at 
any  moment  be  laid  upon  them,  against  their  wish 
and  soberer  reason.  But  it  is  only  through  our 
reason  and  our  soberest  judgment  that  God  speaks 
to  us,  with  fullest  reference  to  our  tastes  and  our 
capacities,  our  weaknesses  and  limitations ;  not  com- 
pelling us  and  overruling  us,  but  using  our  thought, 
and  our  judgment,  and  our  conscience,  to  make  plain 
to  us  what  we,  upon  our  fullest  consideration,  recog- 
nize that  we  ought  to  do,  and  what,  in  the  fullest 
enlightenment  of  our  spirit,  we  wish  and  choose 
to  do. 

It  is  so  that  God's  will  came  to  Jesus,  and  it  is 


The  Obedience  of  Jesus  109 

so  that  it  comes  to  us.  Not  violently  and  arbi- 
trarily, but  naturally  and  spontaneously,  as  our 
minds  and  wills  come  to  perceive  and  appropriate 
His  thoughts.  So  that  we  may  have  confidence  in 
God.  He  will  not  lead  us  roughly  or  carelessly ; 
He  will  make  no  mistakes.  When  the  father  holds 
the  little  child's  hand,  every  footstep  is  guided  by 
a  tender  thoughtfulness.  And  we  are  safe  in  yield- 
ing a  trusting  hand  to  God. 

But  to  Jesus,  as  to  us,  the  way  of  obedience  was 
the  way  of  joy.  Not  always  at  the  moment !  It 
is  only  the  lower  and  baser  animals  whose  only 
thought  of  happiness  is  instant  gratification.  And 
for  Jesus  it  was  sometimes  the  joy  set  before  Him 
that  brightened  the  way  of  submission.  But  He 
was  not  mocking  His  companions  when  He  be- 
queathed to  them  "  his  joy."  The  deepest,  sweetest 
joy  that  earth  can  know  was  in  Jesus'  heart,  night 
by  night,  as  He  turned  to  sleep.  Would  you  have 
preferred  Pilate's  pillow  or  King  Herod's,  or  that 
wealthy  man,  Simon's? 

The  way  of  joy  is  a  strange  one.  You  do  not 
find  it  quite  where  you  look  for  it.  We  think  we 
see  its  presence  in  the  luxurious  home,  or  on  the 
white  deck  of  the  yacht  lying  at  anchor,  or  in  the 
applause  of  the  crowd, — and  are  astonished  to  learn 
that  those  men  are  morose,  or  disappointed,  or 
nervously  broken,  and  that  joy  has  passed  them  by. 


no  The  Obedience  of  Jesus 

And  then  you  may  see — as  I  have  often  seen — a 
Sister  of  the  Salvation  Army,  whose  home  and  life 
is  in  the  reeking,  sodden  slums  of  a  great  city;  and 
from  her  face  looks  out  on  you  an  exquisite  happi- 
ness and  peace,  such  as  Jesus  knew,  as  He,  too,  went 
on  His  difficult  way  obeying  God.  It  is  impossible 
to  say  where  the  way  of  joy  will  lie  for  you.  You 
may  think  it  is  in  the  halls  or  laboratories  of  a  great 
city,  and  it  may  be  in  the  loneliness  of  Central  Asia, 
or  in  the  humblest  of  unnoticed  tasks  at  home.  It 
is  where,  and  only  where,  you  can  be  in  the  presence 
of  the  great  Leader  and  Captain,  loyally  obedient  to 
His  call. 

Not  long  ago  a  lady  was  visiting  the  great  leper 
hospital  in  Quito,  Ecuador.  Back  and  forth  she 
went  through  its  wards  and  corridors,  shuddering 
at  that  awful  aggregation  of  misery,  that  made  her 
forget  the  blue  sky  and  smiling  sun  without.  She 
had  as  her  conductor  the  Mother  Superior  of  the 
house,  who  had  been  in  charge  for  twelve  years, 
and  who  still  had  a  face  calm,  resolute,  and  sweet, 
with  the  light  upon  it  of  a  deep  content.  "  And 
how  can  you  endure  it  to  spend  your  life  among  such 
scenes  ?  "  asked  the  visitor.  In  answer  she  led  the 
way  to  a  tiny  chapel  hung  in  white,  and  pointed  to  a 
picture  hanging  there,  the  picture  of  the  Good  Shep- 
herd. No  word  was  spoken — no  word  was  needed. 

The  Good  Shepherd  walked  the  way  of  joy  in 


The  Obedience  of  Jesus  in 

carrying  out  His  Father's  will.  It  was  His  meat  and 
drink — so  He  said  Himself.  And  an  innumerable 
multitude  following  Him,  not  fearing  the  call  of 
God,  have  entered  into  His  joy  in  that  same  path 
of  obedience. 

For  those  men  and  women,  here,  before  whom 
all  the  paths  of  life  lie  open,  with  all  their  tempting, 
beckoning  possibilities,  there  is  only  one  path  in 
which  you  will  find  how  good  and  satisfying  life 
may  be,  and  that  is  the  path  in  which  you  let  God 
lead  you  day  by  day.  But  let  Him  lead  you  this 
day,  lest  to-morrow  the  heavenly  vision  should  not 
shine  so  clear. 


VIII 
The  Power  of  an  Affirmation 

"  Reckon  ye  yourselves  to  be  dead  unto  sin,  but  alive  unto 
God  in  Christ  Jesus." — ROM.  6:n. 

THIS  may  seem  to  some  of  us  to  be  one  of 
the  driest  and  most  mechanical  utterances 
of  the  peculiar  theology  of  Paul,  beginning, 
as  it  does,  with  his  favorite  word  "  to  impute," 
"  to  reckon,"  that  has  been  used  to  introduce  so 
artificial  an  element  into  the  thinking  of  centuries. 
It  may  seem  to  us  to  be  out  of  relation  with  the 
keenly  practical  and  matter-of-fact  thinking  of  to- 
day. We  want  not  only  reality,  but  realities  that 
are  in  touch  with  the  thinking  and  living  of  our 
own  generation. 

And  it  is  for  this  reason  that  I  have  chosen  this 
text  as  one  to  go  far  with  us  in  life,  because  it 
is  intensely  modern  in  its  thought,  throbbing  with 
a  reality  that  you  might  almost  say  has  become  new 
to  our  generation.  Perhaps  it  seemed  artificial  to 
us  in  our  boyhood — to  reckon  something  that  hard- 
headed  sense  affirms  is  not  really  so — but  in  this 

112 


The  Power  of  an  Affirmation        113 

twentieth  century  it  takes  on  a  new  significance,  a 
new  pertinence. 

The  thought  is  that  which  seems  to  be  the  most 
vital  in  Christian  Science.  It  is  that,  also,  which 
lies  behind  all  the  present-day  systems  of  suggestive 
therapeutics.  One  might  even  call  its  method  of 
operation  that  of  auto-suggestion,  and  not  be  far 
from  the  fact.  Of  course,  in  Paul's  thought  it  has 
a  far  wider  range  than  any  that  merely  contemplates 
physical  conditions ;  for  he  applies  it  to  our  spiritual 
life.  But  the  principle  is  the  same,  and  if  it  is 
important  as  it  relates  to  the  body,  as  millions  think 
it  is,  much  more  is  it  important  as  it  applies  to  the 
life  of  the  soul.  And  that  is  what  Paul  was  con- 
cerned about,  and  that  is  what  we  are  interested  in 
above  all  else. 

What  is  the  principle  that  is  becoming  of  so  in- 
tense an  interest  to  our  generation,  and  that  Paul 
here  enunciates  for  those  men  and  women  strug- 
gling into  a  Christian  life  in  that  moral  sink  of  the 
Roman  world? 

It  is  simply  this — that  one  should  proudly  assert 
and  affirm  a  condition  of  health  and  completeness, 
not  yet  fully  realized,  but  possible  and  normal  to 
him,  and  should  actually  live  under  the  control  and 
stimulus  of  this  assertion  until  it  works  itself  out 
into  actual  realization  and  achievement.  It  rests 
psychologically  upon  the  power  of  a  determined  sug- 


ii4       The  Power  of  an  Affirmation 

gestion  to  affect  not  only  our  conscious  but  our  sub- 
conscious life,  and  bring  to  pass  changes  that,  but 
for  the  constant  pressure  of  this  confidently  as- 
serted idea,  would  never  come  to  be. 

As  to  the  physical  side  of  this  principle,  I  have 
nothing  now  to  say.  It  is  only  upon  the  moral  and 
spiritual  side,  as  Paul  applied  it  thousands  of  years 
ago,  that  I  would  urge  it  especially  upon  your  atten- 
tion. The  ground  here  has  been  well  explored,  and 
the  theories  well  proved  through  many  centuries,  so 
that  we  cannot  seriously  go  astray. 

It  is  the  secret  of  noble  living,  with  which  we 
have  to  do,  and  none  supposes  that  such  a  secret  is 
some  cheap  and  easy  short-cut  to  character — it  must 
still  call  for  strength  and  faith  and  firmness  of 
decision.  The  promises  of  life  and  death  are 
for  him  who  overcomes,  and  it  is  a  way  of  over- 
coming that  our  text  points  out.  What  is  that 
way? 

We  all  recognize  that  we  are  beings  of  a  most 
complex  nature,  in  whom  opposed  and  utterly  in- 
congruous elements  are  always  struggling  for  the 
mastery.  If  we  have  in  us  the  marks  of  children 
of  God,  we  also  have  the  inheritance  of  the  ape  and 
tiger.  Selfishness,  sensuality,  greed,  are  ever  clutch- 
ing at  our  nobler  selves,  to  drag  us  down,  to  choke 
and  strangle  the  divine,  or  at  least  to  contest  every 
step  of  the  way  by  which  we  would  rise  to  posses- 


The  Power  of  an  Affirmation        115 

sion  of  our  better  selves.  The  animal  traits  battle 
with  the  inheritance  of  the  spirit — God's  spirit — 
in  us,  as  it  appeals  to  us  to  seize  our  birthright  as 
men  made  in  the  image  of  God.  The  appeal  to  us 
is  to  overcome,  to  resist,  to  deny,  to  stifle  the  cling- 
ing, shameful  enemies  of  our  baser  self,  and  to  walk 
proudly,  yet  humbly,  as  men  who  will  not  bow  their 
necks  to  the  slavery  of  the  flesh. 

There  are  two  widely  different  ways  of  coming  up 
to  this  ancient  battle  for  a  noble  life.  One  may 
come  up  to  it  defeated  already  because  of  his  apolo- 
getic or  uncertain  attitude;  or  he  may  come  with 
the  assurance  of  a  victory  that  in  the  long  run  must 
be  his. 

Let  us  use  the  illustration  nearest  at  hand.  There 
appeared  in  the  papers  a  little  while  ago  an  inter- 
view with  Elinor  Glyn,  the  novelist.  She  was 
speaking  of  the  superb  old  English  marriage  vow 
that  has  come  down  to  us  unchanged  through  the 
centuries,  and  that  by  its  very  strength  and  dignity 
has  often  made  solemn  and  worthy  the  plighted 
troth  that  might  have  been  frivolous  or  careless, — 
the  promise  "  for  better,  for  worse,  for  richer,  for 
poorer,  in  sickness  and  in  health,  to  love  and  to 
cherish  till  death  us  do  part."  Mrs.  Glyn  was  re- 
ported as  saying,  what  would  meet  with  a  chorus  of 
approval  from  a  certain  class  all  over  our  country, 
that  this  promise  was  objectionable  and  useless,  be- 


n6       The  Power  of  an  Affirmation 

cause  intrinsically  unreasonable,  being  against  na- 
ture. Men  being  what  they  are,  with  changing  im- 
pulses, it  was  impossible  for  them  to  forecast  the 
long  future,  or  to  put  themselves  under  an  irrevoca- 
ble bond  till  death.  We  must  take  life  as  it  is,  and 
recognize  human  weakness,  etc.,  etc. 

Now,  here  is  the  issue  clearly  joined.  One  man 
comes  up  to  his  opening  future,  and  taking  his  stand 
upon  his  rightful  strength  and  honor  as  a  child  of 
God,  a  man,  with  his  life  and  its  determinations  in 
his  own  hands,  makes  a  promise  until  death,  un- 
faltering, unafraid,  denying  to  himself  any  possi- 
bility of  aught  but  fidelity,  as  an  old  Greek  might 
have  gone  out  to  battle  assured  of  one  thing  only, 
that  in  any  case,  come  life  or  death,  he  would  not 
turn  his  back  upon  the  foe.  And  in  the  strength 
of  that  superb  affirmation  of  the  marriage  vow,  as 
tender  as  it  is  strong,  what  an  innumerable  multi- 
tude of  men  and  women  have  never  even  imagined 
the  poor  dastardly  thought  of  a  possible  defeat  of 
their  pledged  honor ! 

And  on  the  other  hand,  here  again  are  men  and 
women  by  the  multitude,  coming  up  to  this  same 
place  of  decision,  with  such  an  eye  to  their  own 
weakness,  and  the  probable  instability  of  their  own 
choices,  that  if  they  use  these  words  at  all  they  use 
them  with  the  secret  fear  that  perhaps  it  will  be  a 
vain  promise  after  all.  Their  defeat  is  already  half 


The  Power  of  an  Affirmation        117 

assured  by  the  fact  that  they  would  leave  every 
avenue  open  for  retreat,  in  case  their  mind  should 
change. 

The  one  man  reckons  dishonor  to  his  word  im- 
possible. The  other  reckons  that  it  is  quite  possible ; 
and  though  he  would  fight  against  it,  he  mentally 
sees  himself  already  retiring  defeated  from  the  con- 
test. One  resolutely  affirms  what  he  will  have,  must 
have,  true,  and  lives  under  the  daily  power  of  that 
affirmation.  The  other  is  afraid  to  affirm,  and  lives 
under  the  daily  influence  of  the  suggestion  that 
there  are  two  courses  open  to  him  after  all.  In  each 
case  the  work  of  the  suggestion  never  slumbers;  but 
in  one  case  it  is  a  divine  suggestion  of  strength  and 
honor,  and  in  the  other  it  is  one  of  weakness,  of 
contemptible  surrender  to  the  baser  element  in  hu- 
man life. 

We  have  to-day  a  wide  school  of  writers,  of  which 
perhaps  the  Italian  d'Annunzio  is  the  chief,  who 
more  or  less  openly  profess  the  doctrine  that  human 
life,  to  be  complete,  must  live  out  all  its  elements. 
That  we  may  live,  nay,  should  live,  the  natural  life. 
And  that  if  the  ape  and  tiger  persist  in  us  till  this 
day,  we  must  recognize  the  necessity  of  giving  them 
their  place  in  our  scheme  of  living.  To  do  other- 
wise is  to  be  unnatural;  it  is  to  cramp  and  narrow 
one's  own  personality  that  should  have  free  expres- 
sion. Sin  is  a  word  of  pedants  and  ascetics — of 


u8       The  Power  of  an  Affirmation 

the  strait-laced  killers  of  joy,  who  envy  men  the 
pleasures  of  a  natural  existence. 

With  such  a  theory  of  life  as  that,  one  is  fore- 
doomed to  moral  overthrow.  He  may  not  mean,  by 
it,  to  give  up  the  fight  for  character ;  but  the  subtle 
influence  of  its  suggestion,  always  at  work,  con- 
doning weakness  and  excusing  indulgence,  must 
needs  sap  the  divine  life  and  strength  in  man,  at 
its  very  root.  It  may  lead  to  a  character  like  that 
of  the  younger  Dumas,  naively  asserting  its  utter 
innocence  of  wrong-doing  and  yet  marred  with  life- 
long dissipation;  but  it  could  never  lead  to  such 
sternly  honorable  lives  as  those  of  Scott,  or  Brown- 
ing, or  Gladstone,  that  in  the  toughness  of  their 
moral  fibre  can  only  be  the  products  of  a  divinely 
prompted  assertion  of  the  will,  firm-rooted  against 
all  the  winds  of  temptation  that  can  blow. 

We  need  no  further  illustration  of  the  fact  that 
life  is  a  battle,  and  that  one  may  so  come  up  to 
it  as  to  invite  defeat,  or  so  as  to  insure  a  final  vic- 
tory, when  the  day  is  done.  We  lay  the  future 
under  compulsion  by  our  predetermined  attitude  to 
the  fight;  we  decide  the  battle  in  advance,  either 
by  the  dogged  affirmation  of  our  will,  or  by  the 
wavering  uncertainty  that  is  not  sure  what  the 
issue  is  to  be. 

Let  us  return  now  to  our  text,  and  see  the  way 
in  which  Paul  would  lay  a  whole  life  under  bonds — 


The  Power  of  an  Affirmation        119 

would  determine  the  issue  of  the  whole  struggle 
from  its  beginning.  He  lays  down  a  double  asser- 
tion regarding  one's  moral  life,  facing  on  the  one 
side  toward  God,  on  the  other  side  toward  all  the 
gathered  forces  of  destruction  that  beset  the  soul. 
"  Reckon  yourselves,"  he  says,  "to  be  dead  to  sin, 
but  alive  unto  God."  Toward  sin,  count  yourselves 
insensible,  unresponsive,  unable  to  be  seduced  by  its 
allurements;  not  inviting  it  to  a  parley,  to  see 
whether  you  are  stronger  than  it,  but  denying  it 
and  refusing  it,  as  one  who  is  done  with  it,  as  a 
dead  man  is  done  with  time.  You  have  cut  your- 
self off  from  it.  Live  under  the  daily  renewed 
power  of  that  assertion. 

But  toward  God,  reckon  yourself  alive  in  every 
fibre  of  your  being,  sensitive  and  responsive  to  every 
stimulus  from  Him :  with  every  avenue  of  com- 
munication open,  with  every  faculty  alert  to  answer 
to  His  will;  in  deep  essential  touch  with  the  un- 
fathomed  depths  of  His  holiness,  and  love,  and 
strength;  thinking  His  thoughts  after  Him  by  sym- 
pathy, loving  what  He  loves,  hating  what  He  hates, 
doing  what  He  wills — a  child  of  the  Father.  Even 
here  on  earth,  with  the  Father  hidden  in  deep  dark- 
ness, yet  daily,  consciously,  determinedly,  holding 
your  life  in  touch  with  the  Almighty  and  Holy 
God.  Reckon  yourself,  so,  alive! 

But — and  we  must  needs  face  a  chorus  of  regret- 


I2O       The  Power  of  an  Affirmation 

ful  protest — we  are  not  dead  to  sin!  We  are  not 
alive  to  God!  Often  we  are  dully  insensible  to  the 
call  of  God,  and  quiveringly  sensitive  to  the  appeal 
of  evil.  Paul  would  have  us  assert  what  our  ex- 
perience all  too  hopelessly  denies ! 

Yes,  that  is  so,  sometimes,  in  some  degree;  our 
affections  are  unstable.  But  is  this  evident  imper- 
fection of  character  what  you  wish  to  be?  No,  it 
is  not  what  we  wish!  Is  it  what  you  expect  will 
always  be,  as  your  permanent  estate?  No!  may 
God  forbid  that,  else  we  should  be  lost  men.  Is  it 
what  you  believe  to  be  your  normal  life,  suitable 
and  proper  for  you  as  a  man?  No!  it  is  neither 
suitable  nor  normal,  but  abnormal  and  injurious. 
And,  last  of  all,  is  it  the  purpose  and  design  of 
God,  in  His  great  saving  work  through  Jesus  Christ, 
that  you  should  continue  so  to  live,  the  sport  of 
opposing  forces,  the  occasional  prey  of  the  tempter? 
No !  He  came  to  redeem  us  from  all  iniquity. 

Since,  then,  this  divided  allegiance  is  neither  what 
we  wish  to  be,  nor  what  should  be,  nor  what  shall 
be,  then  let  us  rise  up,  for  all  our  present  weak- 
ness, and  declare  our  freedom,  our  true  estate,  as 
sons  of  God,  and  reckon  ourselves  dead  to  sin  and 
alive  to  our  Father  in  Heaven.  And  though  in  our 
assertion  of  this  freedom,  Satan  may  for  the  time 
contradict  us,  and  buffet  us,  and  sometimes  bring 
us  to  our  knees,  as  God  lives,  he  cannot  move  us, 


The  Power  of  an  Affirmation        121 

nor  can  any  pluck  us  out  of  our  Father's  hand. 
There  is  an  affirmation  that  is  true — one  to  live  and 
die  for!  The  truth  is  not  yet  wholly  realized,  but 
it  shall  be  realized,  and  we  now  are  on  the  way  to 
such  a  victory. 

We  do  not  need  perfect  realization  in  order  to 
assert  a  truth.  This  United  States  was  founded  as 
a  free  country,  for  free  men,  in  bondage  or  sub- 
jection to  no  king  or  over-lord!  Tens  of  thou- 
sands died  to  win  its  right  to  such  a  claim.  And 
the  fight  was  won.  And  still  in  1850  it  was  a  free 
country,  and  for  free  men.  Yet  there  was  slavery, 
to  give  the  bitter  lie  to  such  a  claim.  Did  it  give 
the  lie  ?  For  a  little  while,  yes !  But  though  it 
took  the  life-blood  of  hundreds  of  thousands  to  blot 
out  the  lie,  it  could  not  stand,  and  long  since  the 
essential  falsehood  of  it  has  been  admitted  and  re- 
pented of. 

To-day,  there  are  still  those  in  this  land  who  are 
oppressed  and  in  virtual  bondage,  economically,  to 
hard  masters.  Yet  this  is  still  a  country  for  the 
free,  and  the  bondage  of  these  men  and  women  will 
be  broken  also.  It  is  our  proud  confidence  that,  for 
all  the  need  of  unceasing  vigilance  to  keep  our  lib- 
erties, this  land  of  ours  is  and  shall  be  increasingly 
a  land  of  civic  freedom.  It  is  its  birthright,  and 
no  passing  menace  to  its  life  can  long  obscure  the 
deep,  unshakable  determination  of  the  people  of  the 


122       The  Power  of  an  Affirmation 

land  that  its  birthright  never  shall  be  sold  or  even 
seriously  put  in  peril.  A  great  purpose,  and  a  great 
faith,  take  no  heed  of  passing  assaults  and  partial 
failures,  that  assail,  and  threaten,  and  even  seem  to 
deny  the  truth  of  that  superb  assertion. 

And  if  any  think  these  words  of  Paul  are  unreal 
or  artificial  because  they  overleap  by  faith  the  weak- 
ness of  these  years  of  earthly  struggle,  they  have 
misread  life.  They  have  mistaken  the  grandeur  of 
our  human  nature,  made  after  God's  image,  that  can 
rise  above  the  sneers  and  threats  and  enticements  of 
the  flesh,  and  assert  that  we  are  God's,  that  God  has 
begun  His  perfect  work  in  us,  and  that  already,  here 
and  now,  with  the  enemy  on  every  hand,  we  count 
ourselves  dead  to  sin,  and  alive  unto  our  God.  The 
thrill  and  power  and  saving  grace  of  such  a  divinely 
prompted  affirmation  will  be  with  us  every  day.  Not 
only  in  our  thoughtful  moments,  but  when  we  sleep, 
when  we  are  preoccupied  with  business,  when  we 
are  dulled  with  care,  our  deepest  selves,  that  never 
slumber,  will  feed  upon  that  declaration  and  grow 
ever  stronger  for  its  strength. 

This  is  no  dream ;  it  is  no  theory.  It  is  a  fact  of 
experience  that  has  been  working  itself  out  in  hu- 
man lives,  ever  since  Paul  spoke,  or  ever  since  Jesus 
said  to  a  man  or  woman,  half  freed  from  evil  sense, 
"  Go  in  peace;  thy  sins  are  forgiven."  Weary  years 
of  entanglement  in  old  weaknesses  lay  before  them, 


The  Power  of  an  Affirmation        123 

but  the  assertion  and  promise  of  their  Saviour  over- 
leaped and  overlooked  the  days  of  conflict  to  the 
sure  issue  of  triumphant  holiness  and  joy. 

It  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  need  of  such 
a  brave,  proud  affirmation  for  those  of  us  who  have 
their  life  before  them.  The  power  of  a  mean  or 
weak  suggestion  means  the  gradual  paralysis  of  our 
better  selves, — their  gradual  submergence  under  the 
tide  of  the  earthliness  and  pettiness  of  ordinary  liv- 
ing. But  if  we  may  truly  take  our  stand  as  those 
who  have  settled  for  all  time  the  essential  question 
of  our  attitude  to  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil, 
counting  ourselves  done  with  sin  and  just  beginning 
to  live  for  God,  we  shall  be  like  men  in  the  saving 
grip  of  a  great  inspiration,  who  cannot  yield,  even 
though,  again  and  again,  we  are  wounded  in  the 
struggle.  At  the  university,  on  the  street,  in  foreign 
lands,  we  shall  soon  be  assailed  with  the  doubt 
whether  we  are  not  narrow  and  peculiar,  and 
whether  it  is  not  the  part  of  wisdom  to  do  when  in 
Rome  as  the  Romans  do.  Under  new  environ- 
ments, with  new  duties  and  new  pleasures,  as  busi- 
ness life,  or  perhaps  married  life,  opens  to  us  its 
new  demands  upon  our  constancy,  we  shall  to  a 
certainty  be  urged  to  let  down  our  simple  standard 
of  straight  obedience  to  God's  will.  Then  it  is  that 
we  shall  thank  God  anew  if  we  are  in  the  grip  of 
this  great  affirmation. 


124       The  Power  of  an  Affirmation 

It  takes  a  certain  heroism  to  make  it  and  maintain 
it.  But  unless  we  are  heroic,  we  shall  never  be  of 
those  who  overcome.  In  the  region  of  the  Cau- 
casus they  have  a  saying,  "  Heroism  is  endurance 
for  one  moment  more."  Can  we  not  make  a  fight, 
moment  by  moment,  through  the  years,  to  be  true 
to  this  declaration  of  our  true  estate?  It  is  a  sub- 
lime thing  to  refuse  to  let  go,  to  refuse  to  be  de- 
feated— a  thrilling  thing  even  to  witness. 

In  February  of  1901  a  German  steamer  went 
ashore  on  a  submerged  reef,  just  off  one  of  the 
roughest  parts  of  the  coast  of  Newfoundland,  where 
the  rocks  rise  in  an  unbroken  precipice  for  three 
hundred  feet.  When  the  fishermen  on  the  shore 
first  saw  her  in  the  morning,  her  boats  were  all  gone, 
and  only  three  men  were  still  alive.  Two  of  these 
were  soon  carried  away.  One  remained,  lashed  in 
the  fore-rigging.  Presently  they  saw  him  loosening 
his  lashings,  and  letting  himself  down  into  the  sea. 
And  there  he  battled  his  way  heroically  to  the  rocky 
shore.  A  great  wave  swept  him  off.  He  fought  his 
way  back  again,  only  to  be  swept  off  a  second  time, 
and  then  a  third.  They  thought  then  to  see  him 
abandon  the  hopeless  agony  of  resistance  to  an  in- 
evitable fate,  and  give  up  the  struggle.  But  slowly 
and  painfully  he  made  his  way  back  to  the  ship, 
climbed  into  the  fore-shrouds,  and  lashed  himself 
as  before  in  the  rigging.  He  would  not  accept  de- 


The  Power  of  an  Affirmation        125 

feat.  In  the  morning  the  fishermen  saw  him  there 
still,  but  motionless,  frozen  in  the  night.  He  failed 
to  win  his  life;  but  what  an  indomitable  will  he 
had,  and  what  a  fight  he  made ! 

But,  here  is  the  pitiful  suggestion.  Is  it  possible 
that  we,  making  our  fight  to  realize  the  truth  of 
this  great  affirmation,  may  only  give  an  example  of 
such  a  heroism,  failing  of  its  hope  at  last? 

Here  is  some  one  to  object  that,  while  we  have 
used  many  brave  words  in  what  we  have  been  saying, 
about  the  dignity  of  human  nature  and  the  power  of 
the  will  and  the  influence  of  suggestion,  yet,  after 
all,  such  an  affirmation  is  a  piece  of  pure  presump- 
tion, in  which  no  man  is  warranted ;  that  only  God's 
mercy  could  warrant  such  a  claim,  or  bring  to  pass 
such  a  conclusion  of  victory.  And,  indeed,  when 
we  look  in  upon  ourselves,  we  find  no  such  power  of 
self -recovery,  of  moral  renovation,  as  a  proud  as- 
sertion like  this  of  Paul's  involves, — as  if  what  we 
have  been  saying  were  frothy  sentiment  only,  with 
no  sure,  sound  power  of  realization. 

And  just  here  we  come  in  sight  of  the  last  three 
words  of  our  text — and  with  them  we  come  in  sight 
also  of  the  glad  tidings  of  the  eternal  gospel.  Paul 
said,  Reckon  ye  yourselves  to  be  dead  unto  sin,  but 
alive  unto  God  in  Christ  Jesus.  There  is  the  rea- 
sonable and  sufficient  ground  for  such  an  unwaver- 
ing assertion  on  our  part, — the  fact  that  God  Him- 


126       The  Power  of  an  Affirmation 

self  is  concerned  in  this  matter,  is  engaged  on  our 
behalf,  to  make  the  assertion  true.  The  eternal  mys- 
tery of  His  love  and  sacrifice  is  behind  it.  It  is 
simply  the  assurance  that  we  shall  presently  lay  hold 
of  that  for  which  we  were  laid  hold  of  by  Christ 
Jesus ;  that  till  the  far  end  of  the  day,  nothing  shall 
be  able  to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God  which 
is  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord. 

He,  the  great  Elder  Brother  of  our  race,  would 
link  us  with  Himself,  in  a  fellowship  of  sympathy 
and  trust  that  Paul  loved  to  call  union :  saying,  as 
Paul  did,  that  he  and  the  young  Christians  were  in 
Christ  Jesus.  We  may  not  grasp  this  thought,  we 
may  have  different  understandings  of  what  Paul 
meant,  but  the  fact  remains — the  reality  is  unshaka- 
ble— that  because  of  God's  hold  on  us  through  Jesus 
Christ  He  will  save  us  unto  the  uttermost.  He 
will  make  good  our  faith  that  we  are  dead  unto  sin 
and  alive  unto  Him.  It  is  no  presumptuous  boast, 
it  is  no  unsafe  assertion,  it  is  what  He  Himself  puts 
into  our  hearts,  and  into  our  lips,  as  the  sober  truth. 
It  is  the  assurance  of  inexpressible  comfort,  that  He 
will  one  day  set  us  without  blemish  in  His  presence. 

Let  us  then,  with  our  eye  upon  that  day  and  our 
faith  upon  this  gospel  of  God,  reckon  ourselves  from 
this  time  to  be  dead  indeed  unto  sin  but  alive  unto 
God,  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. 


IX 
The  Reproach  of  Christ 

"  The  reproach  of  Christ." — HEB.  11:26. 

IT  is  an  old  old  phrase,  used  by  men  who  were 
made  to  feel  that  their  message  was  an  insult 
to  the  culture  of  their  day.     But  the  sting  of 
it,  and  the  hurt  of  it,  are  as  truly  felt  with  us  as 
ever  in  Alexandria  or  Athens  long  ago. 

The  men  of  those  cities  were  proud,  and  the  story 
of  Jesus  Christ  was  for  many  reasons  humiliating 
both  to  their  pride  and  to  their  learning.  We,  too, 
are  proud,  and  keenly  anxious  to  stand  well  in  the 
great,  wise  world  of  letters  and  science  and  academic 
dignity,  and  there  is  still  the  old  smarting  sense  of 
a  certain  humiliation  in  any  very  close  association 
with  so  incongruous  a  figure  as  that  of  Jesus  Christ. 
I  do  not  mean  the  popular  idealized  or  purely  intel- 
lectual Jesus  Christ  of  an  ethical  system,  but  the  real 
Jesus  Christ,  if  there  ever  was  one,  of  whom  we 
read  in  the  New  Testament ;  the  man  who  demanded 
of  His  friends  so  close  and  intimate  an  allegiance 
that  they,  too,  were  compelled  to  share  His  shame — 

127 


128  The  Reproach  of  Christ 

to  bear  the  insult  of  that  personal  association,  in 
an  unconcealed  and  deathless  loyalty. 

Jesus  Christ  was  always  a  curiously  incongruous 
figure  in  the  polite  world  either  of  Judsea  or  of 
Rome,  with  His  uncomfortable  talk  of  the  deadly 
sores  of  society,  which  polite  people  cover  over,  and 
of  the  inmost  palpitating  realities  of  the  soul,  which 
cultured  persons  still  more  agree  not  even  to  speak 
of  in  public.  We  are  quite  mistaken  if  we  think 
that  it  was  only  the  cross  that  constituted  the  re- 
proach of  Christ,  and  that  we  have  passed  beyond 
that,  as  the  cross  has  become  highly  respectable  and 
even  aesthetically  agreeable.  There  was  in  the  very- 
nature  of  Jesus  Christ  and  His  message  something 
too  simple  and  childlike  to  fit  in  with  our  more  so- 
phisticated and  formal  temper. 

A  child  is  so  disconcertingly  open  and  frank  about 
all  his  loves  and  loyalties.  He  does  not  see  the 
reasons  for  hiding  what  is  in  his  heart,  or  con- 
stantly dissembling  or  checking  his  honest  emotions. 
He  is  painfully  direct  and  personal,  gazing  at  you 
with  eyes  that  frankly  tell  and  ask  the  truth.  Where 
he  loves  and  trusts,  his  love  and  trust  are  apt  to 
be  uncalculating  and  unreserved. 

The  relations  of  Jesus  Christ  with  His  friends 
and  disciples  were  very  much  of  this  childlike  and 
unsophisticated  order,  both  in  what  He  gave  and 
in  what  He  asked.  He  stripped  away  the  ordinary 


The  Reproach  of  Christ  129 

disguises  and  reserves  of  social  intercourse,  and 
talked  with  men  and  women  concerning  the  utmost 
allegiances  of  the  spirit,  as  frankly  as  we  discuss 
the  weather.  In  His  very  look  one  could  read  the 
innermost  depths  of  His  soul,  as  Peter  saw  them 
that  night  when  his  Lord  turned  and  looked  on  him. 
He  gave  Himself  to  His  friends  absolutely,  and 
unto  death.  He  asked  of  them  the  same  unqualified 
surrender,  in  personal  fidelity  and  love.  The  es- 
sence of  His  glad  tidings,  as  His  best  friends  knew 
it,  was  in  this  vital,  indissoluble  union  of  spirit  be- 
tween the  redeemed  soul  and  its  redeemer, — a  union 
fused  and  welded  for  the  ages  of  the  ages  by  love, 
that  on  either  side  had  its  unquenchable  fires  in 
God. 

Now  all  this  is  part  of  the  enduring  reproach  of 
Christ.  It  is  uncomfortable  and  unacademic  in  its 
methods.  It  is  one  thing  to  sit  down  and  discuss, 
quite  apart  from  any  emotion  or  personal  feeling, 
the  high  abstractions  of  the  spiritual  life — to  talk 
together  as  the  rabbis  and  fathers  did,  quite  coolly 
and  intellectually,  of  the  nature  of  God,  and  of  His 
ethical  demands  on  human  life.  Philosophers  and 
wise  men  have  loved  such  calm  and  elevating  dis- 
course, in  all  lands  and  ages.  It  refines  and  purifies 
the  spirit  even  to  discuss  these  great  ideals,  that  can 
do  so  much  for  life. 

But  who  is  this  that  sits  down  among  the  doc- 


130  The  Reproach  of  Christ 

tors,  and  throws  all  their  calmly  ordered  wisdom 
into  confusion  by  the  sheer  simplicity  and  intensity 
of  primitive  emotions — the  quivering  fear  and  ha- 
tred of  evil  and  oppression,  evils  most  common  and 
half  respectable;  the  eager,  passionate  sympathy  and 
pity  for  the  unfortunate  victims  of  these  misadjust- 
ments  in  society;  the  intense,  throbbing  mother-like 
love  of  people,  whom  He  calls  His  brothers  and 
sisters ;  the  intrusive  and  bewildering  atmosphere  of 
personality  that  He  throws  around  all  His  own  rela- 
tions to  these  people  and  problems!  There  is  no 
place  for  Him  among  the  philosophers.  Such  pas- 
sionate devotions  and  demands,  claiming  to  be  the 
expression  of  an  infinite,  eternal  energy  of  divine 
love,  upset  all  order  and  reserve  in  academic  dis- 
cusssion. 

And  so  it  was  very  natural  that  such  a  person 
as  Jesus  should  take  a  sort  of  refuge  in  the  sim- 
plicity of  children,  saying — what  was  heartily 
laughed  at  in  His  time  and  has  amused  many  by 
its  naivete  ever  since — that  God  had  hid  these  things 
from  the  wise  and  prudent  and  had  revealed  them 
unto  babes.  "  Babes !  "  the  Pharisees  would  have 
appreciated  that.  And  Jesus  went  on  further  to  say 
that  except  one  became  as  a  little  child  he  would 
never  understand ;  and  that  His  kingdom  was  made 
up  of  people  somehow  like  children.  No  wonder 
that  it  was  mostly  people  of  a  certain  class  that 


The  Reproach  of  Christ  131 

followed  Him;  and  that  none  of  the  rulers  or  of 
the  Pharisees  believed  His  message. 

A  few  years  later,  when  the  greatest  of  the  apos- 
tles was  spreading  mightily  the  glad  tidings  con- 
cerning Jesus  Christ,  he  was  fairly  compelled  to 
admit  that  it  was  not  only  offensive  to  the  Jews, 
but  fair  foolishness  to  the  Greeks.  There  was  that 
about  Jesus  Christ,  which  Paul  could  not  hide  nor 
dissemble  nor  escape,  which  made  Him  a  reproach; 
so  that  the  apostle  rather  pathetically  called  the 
brotherhood  to  witness  that  there  were  not  many 
wise  or  mighty  or  noble  among  them. 

Paul  himself  was  a  scholar,  and  the  son  of  a 
scholar ;  and  he  must  have  felt  keenly  the  mortifica- 
tion of  the  situation,  that  the  Christian  church  had 
so  little  backing  from  the  intellectuals  of  his  time. 
Some  here,  when  in  a  great  modern  university,  have 
felt  the  same  way;  Paul  and  they  could  have  sym- 
pathized with  one  another.  The  real  Jesus  Christ 
is  an  extremely  unpopular  and  difficult  figure,  both 
because  of  His  unphilosophic  simplicity,  and  be- 
cause of  His  terrific  intensity  of  appeal  and  demand, 
as  of  omnipotence  and  eternity  combined. 

It  is  well  for  us,  at  such  a  time  of  disappoint- 
ment, if  we  can  say  in  the  next  breath  with  Paul, 
that  we  count  all  things  but  loss  for  the  excellency 
of  the  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus.  But  it  is  well 
for  us  to  remember,  till  our  last  day,  that  this  Lord 


132  The  Reproach  of  Christ 

and  Master  was  one  despised  and  rejected  of  men, 
not  esteemed  in  His  own  time — one  from  whom 
men  hid  their  faces.  And  it  will  be  passing  strange 
if  we  get  through  life  without  being  tempted  our- 
selves to  regard  Him  shamefacedly,  as  one  with 
whom  we  would  not  have  too  much  to  do  in  public. 

Indeed,  this  temptation  is  ever  present,  even  if 
unperceived,  like  a  strong  ocean  current  that  drifts 
a  vessel  far  out  of  her  course  before  she  knows  that 
aught  is  wrong.  And  while  it  is  always  polite  and 
proper  to  refer  to  the  Power  that  makes  for 
righteousness,  and  to  the  common  religious  elements 
of  the  ethnic  faiths,  and  while  such  remarks  are 
always  blandly,  even  if  not  enthusiastically,  received 
by  any  audience,  yet  to  refer  directly  to  this  Jesus 
Christ  marks  a  man  at  once  as  a  trifle  provincial 
and  narrow  and  peculiar,  as  a  man  somehow  se- 
questered from  the  broad  currents  of  modern 
thought.  As  with  Gordon  in  the  British  army,  or 
Howard  in  our  own,  men  smile  at  him  tolerantly, 
but  a  little  derisively,  as  at  a  pietistic  survival  of  a 
past  age.  Paul  knew  the  sting  of  that  cultured  smile 
even  better  than  the  sting  of  the  lash,  that  marked 
his  body  with  the  reproach  of  Christ  as  the  other 
marked  his  soul.  Some  of  us  will  carry  its  scars. 

Not  all  of  us  may  be  ready  to  grant  that  these 
things  are  true.  I  do  not  want  to  assert  them  dog- 
matically, as  one  who  has  attained  to  a  wiser  view- 


The  Reproach  of  Christ  133 

point  than  his  fellows.  We  are  learners  together 
in  these  things,  trying  to  be  honest  and  sincere,  and 
plodding  onward  with  a  true  longing  to  keep  our 
faces  toward  the  light.  It  is  God's  truth  we  are 
anxious  to  come  at,  and  it  is  not  a  little  shame  or 
humiliation  that  would  make  us  disloyal  to  that 
truth  if  we  knew  where  it  lay.  And  so  I  would 
ask  you  to  reflect  on  this  matter,  and  see  if  it  be  not 
true  that  there  is  a  certain  reproach  of  Christ,  that 
tends  to  make  even  us  instinctively  draw  away  from 
Him,  and  to  withhold  from  Him  in  thought  and 
speech  the  place  that  both  history  and  experience  de- 
clare are  His. 

What  is  the  place  that  historic  Christianity  un- 
questionably gives  to  Him?  I  do  not  at  all  mean 
creedal  Christianity,  or  the  doctrines  of  the  church; 
we  go  behind  those  for  something  more  primitive, 
more  essential.  We  ask  of  Christianity  as  a  life — 
as  a  living  force  from  Jesus'  day  to  ours.  We  are 
not  now  concerned  with  metaphysics  or  precise  for- 
mulae, but  with  the  vital  experience  and  language  of 
the  soul,  in  its  reaction  upon  the  gospel. 

There  is  no  manner  of  doubt,  is  there,  as  to  the 
place  that  Jesus  Christ  occupied  in  the  life  of  His 
apostles  and  personal  friends?  We  have  their  let- 
ters still,  in  which  their  lives  are  mirrored.  And 
the  life  they  lived  was  the  life  of  Christ.  Paul  and 
Peter  and  John  are  alike  in  this.  The  element  in 


134  The  Reproach  of  Christ 

which  they  moved,  in  which  they  labored  and  suf- 
fered and  rejoiced,  was  the  fellowship  of  Jesus 
Christ.  In  the  words  of  one  of  them,  the  life  they 
lived  was  by  faith  in  the  Son  of  God,  who  loved 
them  and  gave  Himself  up  for  them.  The  keynote 
of  their  long,  triumphant  warfare  was  this, 
"  Thanks  be  unto  God,  who  giveth  us  the  victory 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

Mark  closely  that  there  is  in  all  their  writings 
no  trace  of  any  possible  clashing  or  confusion  be- 
tween the  claims  of  God  and  of  Jesus  Christ.  As 
scrupulous  Jews,  they  were  the  most  intense  mono- 
theists  that  the  world  has  ever  known.  There  was 
no  trace  of  dualism  or  tritheism  in  their  thinking. 
I  wish  you  would  sit  down  and  read,  say,  the  first 
letter  of  Peter,  and  see  how  utterly  unconscious 
he  is  of  any  suspicion  of  this  abnormal  growth  of 
later  times.  He  simply  rejoiced  in  the  fact  that 
God  had  come  to  them  through  Jesus  Christ,  that 
the  life  in  Christ  was  the  life  with  God — and  that 
believing  in  Christ  they  could  rejoice  with  joy  un- 
speakable and  full  of  glory. 

So  it  was  with  John.  God  had  given  to  them 
eternal  life,  and  this  life  was  in  His  Son.  So  they 
preached  a  salvation  that  was  brought  to  them  by 
Christ,  and  a  following  life  that  should  be  rooted 
and  builded  up  in  Him.  The  more  you  read  the  New 
Testament  the  more  you  will  be  impressed  by  the 


The  Reproach  of  Christ  135 

inseparableness  of  the  new  life  from  a  constant  and 
rejoicing  fellowship  with  Him  who  had  brought 
them  to  God.  Do  you  feel  any  difference  between 
this  triumphant,  joyful  assertion  of  the  mastery  of 
their  every  phase  of  life  by  the  love  of  Jesus  Christ, 
and  the  speech  and  temper  of  much  of  the  religious 
experience  and  language  of  our  day? 

In  any  case,  no  man  can  doubt  what  was  the  living 
heart  of  apostolic  Christianity,  nor — and  here  we  go 
a  step  further — what  was  the  dynamic  centre  of  the 
gospel  that  overthrew  the  old  heathen  empire  of 
Rome.  You  read  it  in  the  last  words  of  the  mar- 
tyrs at  the  stake;  you  find  it  written  in  the  endless 
dark  of  the  Catacombs,  on  the  tombs  of  the  early 
Christians — the  monogram  of  His  name,  the  picture 
of  the  Good  Shepherd,  the  oft-recurring  fish  (whose 
Greek  letters  are  the  anagram  of  "  Jesus  Christ, 
Son  of  God,  Saviour  ")  ;  and  we  see  the  triumphs 
of  that  King  and  Saviour  in  every  land  bordering 
the  midland  sea,  where  the  world  was  centred. 

Equally  there  is  no  doubt  whatsoever  as  to  the 
place  that  Jesus  Christ  occupied  in  the  message  that 
was  carried  by  the  missionaries,  and  endless  succes- 
sion of  martyrs,  out  into  the  forests  and  deserts  and 
savage  territories  that  hemmed  in  the  growing 
Christendom.  As  John  R.  Mott  has  recently  said, 
"  The  worth  of  Christianity  as  a  missionary  force 
is  measured  by  what  it  has  of  Christ."  That  has 


136  The  Reproach  of  Christ 

been  conspicuously  true,  century  by  century,  among 
all  races  of  men,  until  this  day.  Our  ethical  appeals, 
and  broad  generalities,  and  refined  ideals,  apart  from 
the  central  message  of  Christ  Jesus  as  a  Saviour 
making  its  appeal  straight  to  the  affections  of  men, 
are  much  in  demand  for  home  purposes,  but  they 
simply  do  not  carry  to  heathen  lands;  like  a  rocket 
apparatus  that  works  all  right  on  shore,  but  is  help- 
less in  the  face  of  a  gale  to  reach  the  drowning 
sailors  just  beyond  the  line  of  breakers. 

And  there  is  no  doubt  what  you  will  hear  if 
you  go  to  any  of  the  halls  or  chapels  where  men  are 
trying  to  save  the  hopelessly  lost.  In  our  up-town 
churches  you  will  hear  endless  variations  from  the 
apostolic  message,  but  somehow  there  is  only  one 
note  to  be  struck  when  you  are  face  to  face  with 
mortal  need,  and  that  is  the  note  of  Jesus  Christ 
as  a  Mighty  Friend  and  Saviour. 

It  is  further  true,  is  it  not,  that  in  every  time 
of  spiritual  revival  or  refreshing,  it  is  to  this  New 
Testament  gospel  that  we  return,  as  to  living  wa- 
ters? Probably  our  own  Christian  life  began  in 
a  vivid  appreciation  of  the  power  of  this  message, 
and  whenever  through  the  years  we  are  again  lifted 
on  a  wave  of  divine  quickening,  it  is  to  heed  anew 
our  Lord's  command  "  Abide  in  Me,"  and  to  find 
Him  again  the  centre  and  circumference  of  our  hope 
and  joy.  History  and  experience  alike  declare  Him 


The  Reproach  of  Christ  137 

as  the  author  and  finisher  of  our  faith,  and  crown 
Him  as  the  actual  Captain  of  our  salvation.  It  is 
through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  that  God  actually 
giveth  us  the  victory. 

And  so,  you  would  suppose  that  every  man  who 
bears  the  name  of  Christian  would  be  not  only 
loyal,  but  enthusiastically  and  joyfully  loyal,  to  Him 
through  whom  the  love  of  God  has  reached  him — 
to  Him,  once  the  Man  of  Sorrows,  who  is  now  the 
supreme  sympathizer  and  Saviour.  You  would  sup- 
pose that  in  every  gathering  of  Christian  men,  where 
the  things  of  the  spirit  are  under  discussion,  all  the 
thought  would  be  colored  by  this  fundamental  his- 
toric experience  of  the  Christian  faith;  that  all 
would  recognize  the  truth  of  their  Lord's  words, 
"~  apart  from  me  ye  can  do  nothing  " ;  that  the  deep 
affections  of  the  spirit  for  Him  who  bore  our  griefs 
and  carried  our  sorrows  that  He  might  bring  us 
to  God,  would  continually  be  revealing  themselves, 
by  implication  at  least,  as  underlying  all. 

But  how  is  it  ?  It  is  a  witness  to  the  reproach  of 
Christ  that  you  may  go  to  many  churches  and  to 
many  gatherings  of  Christian  men — even  college 
Young  Men's  Christian  Association  gatherings — 
and  scarce  hear  more  than  an  incidental  allusion  to 
Jesus  Christ,  if  even  as  much  as  that.  You  may 
hear  much  that  is  wise  and  good  and  uplifting,  con- 
fessions and  exhortations  and  aspirations,  discus- 


138  The  Reproach  of  Christ 

sion  of  ideals  and  duties  and  obligations,  almost 
everything,  in  fact,  but  allusion  to  the  central  ex- 
perience of  the  soul  that  colors  almost  every  utter- 
ance of  those  early  friends  of  Jesus,  and  that  is 
still  of  necessity  our  only  weapon  that  is  mighty  to 
the  casting  down  of  strongholds.  Amid  endless  talk 
of  social  renovation,  that  only  is  omitted  in  which 
lies  society's  only  hope. 

We  have  this  same  curious  condition,  written 
large,  in  the  religious  life  of  England  in  the  first 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  We  can  see  it  better 
there,  in  heroic  size.  It  was  the  most  arid  and 
fruitless  period  of  religious  life  of  which  we  know. 
It  was  intensely  respectable,  scholarly,  literary;  it 
was  utterly  ashamed  of  enthusiasm  and  all  emotion, 
and  dreaded  fanaticism  more  than  the  most  blight- 
ing vice.  It  argued  incessantly  and  edifyingly  with 
the  sceptics  of  its  time.  But  its  most  curious  note 
was  its  reluctance  to  allow  any  suggestion  of  inti- 
mate personal  relations  with  God  to  intrude  into  its 
religious  experience.  It  shunned  the  very  name  of 
Christ;  it  avoided  even  the  name  of  God,  and  pre- 
ferred circumlocutions  and  generalities  when  it 
spoke  of  Him.  A  burning  word  of  Paul's  thrown 
into  one  of  their  gatherings — "  the  love  of  Christ 
constraineth  us  " — would  have  been  pitifully  incon- 
gruous and  disconcerting.  And  it  was  not  until  the 
Wesleys  came,  and  Whitfield,  and  unveiled  again 


The  Reproach  of  Christ  139 

before  men's  eyes  the  imperishable  glad  tidings  of 
One  who  would  bring  men  to  God  by  melting  their 
wilful  hearts  with  His  own  love,  and  knitting  them 
to  Him  as  men  in  mortal  need  cling  to  their  De- 
liverer, it  was  not  till  then  that  the  smothering  pall 
of  affectation  and  unreality  lifted  from  the  Chris- 
tian men  and  women  of  England. 

We  yield  ourselves  readily  to  a  religion  which 
makes  comparatively  slight  demands ;  but  we  shrink 
back  from  a  leader  like  Jesus  Christ,  whose  message 
is  so  intensely  personal,  so  thrilling  with  an  infinite 
self-sacrifice  and  an  appeal  to  love  no  less  uncal- 
culating,  and  so  insistent  in  bidding  us  to  cleave  to 
Him  as  a  branch  cleaves  to  the  parent  stem.  That 
is  the  enduring  reproach  of  Christ,  that  makes  men 
inclined  to  hide  their  faces  from  Him.  He  offers 
too  much — He  asks  what  it  searches  a  man's  soul 
to  give.  He  claims  the  utmost  loyalty  of  love  and 
daily  fellowship  and  dependence. 

That  is  costly.  That  demand  is  a  perpetual 
searchlight  upon  one's  honesty  and  sincerity.  Men 
shrink  back  from  such  a  religion.  There  are  other 
religions  not  so  uncompromising.  But  this  is  the 
only  religion  of  Christ.  This  is  the  faith  that  has 
subdued  the  world.  This  is  the  faith  that  can  give 
even  us  the  victory,  and  set  us  one  day  without 
blemish  in  exceeding  joy  in  the  presence  of  God's 
glory. 


140  The  Reproach  of  Christ 

We  may  think  it  a  hard  way.  But  it  is  not  a 
hard  way.  To  men  who  were  afraid  of  this,  Jesus 
said  reassuringly,  "  My  yoke  is  easy,  and  my  burden 
is  light."  Unnumbered  millions  have  found  it  the 
way  of  joy — of  such  joy  and  gladness  as  life  other- 
wise could  not  know.  And  those  who  meet  their 
Master  afresh  each  morning  with  greeting  of  loyalty 
and  gladness,  they  are  the  happy  ones  of  earth.  Let 
us  not  fear,  therefore,  to  go  forth  unto  Him,  if 
necessary,  without  the  camp,  bearing  His  reproach. 


Life  Through  Victory 

11  f  fame  that  they  may  have  life,  and  may  have  it  abund- 
antly"— JOHN  10:10. 

IF  only  this  were  true  in  the  sense  that  men 
would  have  it  true,  what  a  following  Jesus 
Christ  would  have.  Not  the  scanty,  humble 
following  that  He  has  now,  even  in  Christian  lands, 
of  men  and  women  who  seek  for  glory  and  honor 
and  immortality;  but  what  a  rage  of  popularity  there 
would  be  for  our  Lord,  if  He  would  promise  life 
on  easy  terms,  such  life  as  the  world  wants.  Not 
something  slowly  gained  and  hardly  won,  to  be 
reached  perhaps  through  patience  and  self-mastery 
during  many  slow-passing  days  and  years,  but  just 
animal  life  and  ease  of  body  under  to-day's  sun,  so 
that  these  present  days  may  be  sweet  and  joyous, 
without  the  shadow  of  any  struggle  or  discipline 
or  disappointment.  Why,  even  the  poor  stone  image 
of  the  Virgin  at  Lourdes  is  crowded  by  its  tens  of 
thousands  of  enthusiastic  suppliants;  and  if  the 
Good  Shepherd  had  such  pity  on  the  sheep  as  to 

141 


142  Life  Through  Victory 

give  them  the  life  they  long  for,  exuberant  days  of 
strength  and  long  untroubled  nights  of  sleep,  who 
would  not  be  one  of  the  sheep  of  His  flock? 

Here  all  about  us  in  this  Southwest  are  great 
throngs  of  those  who  have  not  the  abundance  of 
life,  but  only  a  life  limited  and  hampered  and  threat- 
ened. And  every  day,  for  conscious,  self -pity  ing 
hours,  they  long  for  more,  and  look  to  see  if  the 
tide  is  coming  in,  or  whether  possibly  the  ebb  al- 
ready has  begun.  Their  thought  and  hunger  and 
prayer,  taking  precedence  of  every  other  prayer  and 
hunger,  is  for  what  Jesus  said  He  came  to  bring — 
more  life.  Only,  alas!  He  does  not  bring  it  to 
them.  He  and  they  seem  to  have  been  thinking  of 
different  things.  He  did  not  mean,  when  He  said 
it,  what  they  mean  when  they  pray.  They  want, 
what  is  no  great  thing,  no  wonderful  possession, 
only  a  few  years  reprieve  in  this  body's  dissolution, 
a  little  longer  efficiency  for  this  machine,  that  wears 
out  so  soon,  yet  through  which  we  gather  to  our- 
selves the  joys  of  living. 

But  Jesus'  thoughts  were  evidently  dwelling  on 
something  else;  something  quite  different  from  this 
body's  pathetic  hunger  for  the  tingle  and  exhilara- 
tion of  abounding  health.  He  seems  to  have  been 
quite  unconscious  of  it  when  he  spoke,  so  preoccu- 
pied was  He  with  something  far  greater  and  more 
wonderful  and  more  hardly  won.  Not  indiscrim- 


Life  Through  Victory  143 

inately  lavished  on  men  everywhere,  even  on  the 
savages  and  careless  children  of  nature,  but  some- 
thing divinely  good,  infinitely  precious  and  lasting, 
wrought  out  like  steel  upon  the  anvil — an  incor- 
ruptible possession  of  the  soul. 

How  good  it  must  have  been,  what  He  was  look- 
ing at,  to  make  Him  willing  to  disappoint  men  so ! 
To  call  Himself  the  Great  Physician,  and  the 
Saviour  of  the  world,  and  yet  leave  men  beset  with 
weaknesses,  and  sometimes  persecuted  with  unyield- 
ing pain.  It  is  true  that  for  a  year  or  more  of  time, 
in  sundry  mud-built  villages  of  an  obscure  Roman 
province,  He  healed  the  sick — He  touched,  as  it 
were,  for  an  instant  a  single  drop  in  the  ocean  of 
the  world's  pain.  But  in  a  few  months  He  withdrew 
Himself  again  from  such  activity,  and  for  all  these 
centuries  the  processes  of  life  and  death  have  gone 
on  undisturbed,  with  life  always  fading  away,  for 
sinner  and  saint  alike.  While  yet,  at  the  same  time, 
there  has  never  been  a  day  in  these  two  millenniums 
in  which  He  has  not  been  offering  life — abundant 
life — to  all  who  will.  How  are  we  to  under- 
stand His  promise,  that  seems  to  men  so  wide 
of  the  world's  wishes  and  the  world's  comprehen- 
sion? 

And  this  is  not  the  only  point  where  the  life  He 
came  to  bring  fails  to  meet  the  world's  importunate 
hunger.  Of  what  good  is  life,  say  many  in  our 


144  Life  Through  Victory 

day,  if  it  is  to  be  spent  in  unbroken  drudgery.  It 
is  not  life,  but  mere  dull  gray  existence.  If  I  must 
go  to  the  mill  or  shop  on  rising  in  the  morning, 
and  stand  there  over  loom  or  machine  or  tool 
through  all  the  slowly  passing  hours  till  evening,  and 
then  go  home,  wearied  out,  to  sleep  till  the  next 
day's  toil;  or  if  I  must  always  trudge  after  plow 
or  harrow,  a  peasant  laborer,  through  youth  and 
manhood  and  even  into  creeping  age,  what  boon 
is  there  in  life  like  this?  Yet  Jesus  hardly  seemed 
to  notice  whether  the  man  to  whom  He  spoke  was 
master  or  slave,  or  poor  or  rich.  He  was  thinking 
of  something  else. 

Can  you  imagine  what  a  following  Jesus  Christ 
would  have  in  America  if  He  really  gave  men  what 
in  these  days  spells  life — money?  Everywhere  men 
and  women  are  struggling  for  money;  not  for  the 
sake  of  having  dollars,  chiefly,  but  because  poverty 
means  captivity,  in  these  days.  It  means  limitation 
of  body  and  mind;  it  means  a  life  cribbed,  cabined, 
and  confined,  in  comparison  with  the  wide,  favored, 
generous  life  that  wealth  would  yield.  Oh  yes!  we 
hunger  for  means,  that  we  may  see  life,  and  enjoy 
life,  and  have  life!  And  what  does  Jesus  do  for 
us  in  this  respect?  He  does  not  even  seem  to 
notice  the  clamorous  hunger  that  fills  men's  days. 
He  calmly  calls  Himself  the  life-bringer,  and  yet 
leaves  men  bound  hand  and  foot  with  poverty.  Why 


Life  Through  Victory  145 

does  He  so  pass  us  by  in  our  desires,  compelling  us 
to  life-long  limitation? 

And  there  are  other  needs  in  our  life  that  take 
first  place  in  our  thoughts  at  times ;  longings  so  im- 
perious that  they  quite  crowd  to  the  wall  thought 
of  what  Jesus  had  in  mind.  Desires  that  are  with 
us  last  at  night  and  first  in  the  morning.  For  what 
is  life  worth  in  loneliness,  without  friends  and  those 
who  love  us?  Men  and  women  kill  themselves  in 
our  cities  every  day,  because  of  the  blank  cheer- 
lessness  of  a  life  in  which  their  hearts  are  starving 
— starving  for  lack  of  common  human  affection. 

Abundant  life,  in  any  case,  means  life  enriched 
by  the  love  and  fellowship  of  others.  And  how 
many  do  you  think  there  are,  even  in  this  Southern 
California,  whose  hearts  are  a  dull  ache,  either  be- 
cause of  loneliness  or  the  fear  of  it, — for  the  fear 
of  losing  those  they  love,  for  the  daily  sight  of 
fading  strength  with  those  whose  presence  alone 
makes  life  a  joy.  And  not  losing  them  alone 
through  illness,  but  losing  them  still  more  hope- 
lessly through  their  follies  and  sins  and  selfishness, 
that  break  up  homes  and  effectually  break  men's 
hearts — the  loss  that  fathers,  and  mothers,  and 
wives  and  husbands  know ;  the  loss  that  is  so  much 
worse,  so  much  more  cruel,  than  the  peaceful  death 
that  only  hides  from  us  the  love  that  still  is  there. 
What  a  satire  it  must  seem  to  some  whose  lives 


146  Life  Through  Victory 

are  darkened  and  impoverished  by  such  loneliness 
as  this,  to  have  our  Lord  speak  of  giving  abundant 
life,  which  yet  leaves  them  forlorn,  to  years  that 
seem  stripped  of  joy. 

We  are  all  likely  to  come  to  times  in  our  life 
when  we  think  wistfully  every  day  of  what  God 
has  denied  us,  and  little  of  what  He  gives;  when 
we  think  much  of  our  self-love,  and  how  indulgent 
it  would  be,  and  little  of  God's  love,  and  its  firm 
yet  tender  efforts  for  our  infinite  gain,  for  our 
spiritual  development  and  redemption.  The  way 
of  ease  is  ever  in  our  thoughts;  but  a  way  of  vic- 
tory, God's  way,  we  do  not  consider.  And  so  our 
whole  perspective  of  life  becomes  disordered  and 
untrue.  We  lose  sight  of  the  ways  of  God,  and 
of  what  life  is  and  of  how  hardly  it  is  won,  and 
of  how  it  must  needs  flower  out  of  discipline  and 
struggle,  an  infinite  possession  laid  hold  of  in  com- 
mon days  of  joy  and  pain.  And  if  we  so  forget, 
then  peace  leaves  us,  and  joy,  and  our  lives  grow 
dull  and  unthankful,  and  love  withers,  and  the  great 
expectant  hope  that  can  light  up  even  a  gray  life 
with  the  gold  of  expectation,  this  also  fades  out 
and  leaves  us  in  the  gloom. 

Let  us  notice  in  passing  two  things.  First,  that 
Jesus  did  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  despise  the  joys 
and  comforts  of  life,  or  give  us  a  gospel  that  counts 
them  of  no  worth.  On  the  contrary,  we  must  see 


Life  Through  Victory  147 

that  His  gospel  steadily  and  of  necessity  tends  to 
raise  the  level  of  material  good  and  comfort  every- 
where it  comes.  It  does  this  indirectly,  and  so  to 
speak,  incidentally,  but  it  does  it.  There  is  less 
sickness,  less  early  death,  less  poverty,  less  disap- 
pointment, less  loneliness,  wherever  the  kingdom  of 
Christ  comes  on  earth.  The  level  of  material  com- 
fort rises  with  the  sway  of  Christ's  gospel  every- 
where, and  a  first  duty  of  His  church  is  to  seek  for 
others  the  normal  level.  No  fear  that  we  shall  lose 
sight  of  this,  or  ever  cease  to  struggle  for  earthly 
comforts ;  the  spirit  of  the  ascetic  in  Christ's  church 
is  dead  or  smitten  to  its  death. 

And  yet,  secondly,  notice  that  this  ease  of  body 
and  comfort  of  mind,  this  immunity  from  life's  sor- 
rows and  disappointments,  is  wholly  and  of  neces- 
sity indirect  and  incidental.  It  is  not  the  primary 
aim  of  Christ's  gospel;  it  is  not  at  the  heart  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  as  realized  on  earth.  He  does  not 
promise  it,  or  hold  it  out  as  a  bait  or  reward;  for 
the  most  part  He  does  not  even  notice  it  or  seem 
to  think  of  it. 

Consider  this,  which  would  seem  to  be  perfectly 
clear  in  Jesus'  teaching:  that  He  did  despise  and 
ignore  "  the  ignoble  happiness  that  consists  in  ex- 
emption from  life's  privations  and  sorrows." 

Why  is  it  so  ignoble — the  happiness  we  so  hunger 
for,  and  so  frankly  pray  for,  as  frankly  and  as 


148  Life  Through  Victory 

innocently  as  little  children?  Lord,  spare  me  pain! 
give  me  strength  and  health;  spare  all  those  I  love 
from  pain  and  sickness ;  let  me  never  have  the  ach- 
ing heart  that  dumbly  suffers  for  seeing  those  I  love 
in  trouble;  save  me  from  anxiety  about  money 
matters,  and  leave  me  not  to  poverty;  let  me  not 
make  a  failure  for  any  reason  of  my  business  or  my 
work ;  never  set  my  feet  in  any  valley  of  humiliation ; 
spare  me  the  loneliness  of  life,  or  the  creeping  shad- 
ows of  any  loss  as  years  multiply;  let  me  out  of 
the  world  softly. 

Do  we  not,  just  because  we  are  men  and  women, 
who  dread  trouble  as  frankly  as  a  child  dreads 
nauseous  medicine  and  rebels  against  it,  do  we  not 
thus  pray  every  day  for  God  to  be  easy  with  us, 
as  a  little  frightened  child  pleads,  crying,  with  the 
doctor  not  to  touch  him  lest  he  hurt. 

Oh  yes!  that  is  life  as  we  want  it — life  as  we 
pray  for  it.  A  pleasant,  smiling,  easy,  unbroken 
way  of  peace,  of  fulfilled  desire,  unthwarted,  undis- 
appointed,  undisciplined ;  left  alone  to  happiness  for 
fear  of  hurt.  Even  though  we  see  how  nothing 
strong  and  nothing  good  was  ever  yet  built  up  in 
human  character  without  storm  and  struggle,  yet 
we  cannot  help  but  pray,  Lord  spare  me,  to-day,  and 
to-morrow ! 

Jesus  was  not  afraid  to  face  the  fact  that  such 
happiness  is  ignoble,  unsatisfying,  fruitless  of  any 


Life  Through  Victory  149 

noble  thing;  and  so,  in  the  end,  means  the  very  dis- 
appointment and  privation  that  we  dread.  To  some 
few  men  and  women  God  allots  such  a  life;  and 
some  few  of  them,  recognizing  the  cloudless  skies 
as  a  temptation  and  a  most  subtle  trial  and  disci- 
pline of  the  soul,  mount  through  it  and  in  spite  of 
it  to  self-realization  and  moral  strength.  But  how 
few  they  are,  and  when  last  did  you  see  one  such? 
And  in  any  case  we  are  not  of  their  number. 

No !  "  life  "  does  not  mean  guaranteed  ease  and 
freedom  from  care  and  pain  on  earth.  Jesus  did  not 
come  to  bring  that  life;  He  did  not  speak  of  it  or 
promise  it  at  all  to  men.  He  does  not  claim  to  be 
such  a  Physician  or  such  a  Saviour.  He  cannot 
compete  with  certain  religionists  of  our  day  who 
do  promise  exemption  from  ills.  He  fails  us  there. 
Let  us  admit  it,  nor  be  astonished  at  it,  nor  grieved 
by  it.  He  will  not  do  this  for  us.  He  is  a  good 
physician,  but  such  a  good  physician  as  will  take  the 
little  crying  child  and  do  for  it  what  must  be  done 
to  give  it  back  to  health  and  joy.  He  will  not  let 
us  suffer  irretrievable  loss  for  His  weak  indulgence 
of  our  timid  selfish  fears. 

And  though  we  cannot  bear  to  let  go  our  own 
desires  for  our  life — a  life  unclouded,  unburdened, 
for  ourselves  or  others — yet  confidently  He  points 
our  way  to  something  else,  that  He  says  is  abundant 
life.  It  must  be  life  indeed  if  it  is  better  than  what 


150  Life  Through  Victory 

we  want !  It  must  be  ineffably  better  than  what  we 
plead  for,  or  He  would  never  suffer  us  to  go  through 
what  perhaps  we  have  to  go  through  in  finding  it. 
Yet  we  see  it  so  imperfectly.  It  seems  so  far 
away !  It  does  not  beckon  and  allure,  as  merriment 
does,  or  the  world  at  the  spring.  And  yet,  unless 
Jesus  is  a  mocker,  it  must  be,  and  it  must  be  in- 
tensely real,  and  marvellously  satisfying,  or  He 
would  never  have  given  Himself  for  the  sheep  that 
they  might  find  it. 

What,  then,  is  this  life?  "  Oh  yes! "  some  one 
says,  "  it  is  the  future  life — heaven's.  Heaven's 
joys  against  earth's  sorrows.  The  old  story;  if  we 
be  patient  here,  we  shall  have  abundant  reward  here- 
after. So  we  must  try  to  live  the  other-worldly 
life,  in  sight  of  the  next  world,  being  willing  to  go 
without  here  for  the  sake  of  what  shall  come  to  us 
in  the  far  future." 

We  all  feel  that  there  is  something  wrong  about 
this ;  something  artificial  and,  so  to  speak,  unnatural. 
Surely  the  goodness  of  God  and  the  richness  of 
His  dealings  with  His  children  ought  to  begin  here 
and  now,  not  to  be  broken  or  essentially  changed 
by  death. 

And  so,  in  fact,  Jesus  spoke  and  thought  of  the 
life  He  came  to  bring.  It  was  for  the  men  and 
women  who  were  about  Him  when  He  spoke,  to  win 


Life  Through  Victory  151 

and  to  enjoy  in  Capernaum,  say,  or  in  Gadara,  just 
as  He  was  sharing  it  then  and  there  in  their  midst. 
No  fear  but  that  anticipation  was  left.  It  was  all 
only  a  foretaste,  a  beginning;  the  best  was  yet  to 
come.  But  it  was  the  beginning  of  the  great  com- 
plete blessed  life  that  He  came  to  bring.  And  as 
such,  it  was  better,  by  an  infinite,  eternal  distance, 
than  the  pleasant,  quick-passing  sunshine  of  earthly 
ease  for  which  we  pray.  Jesus  then  does  not  offer 
heaven's  life  in  place  of  that  we  long  for;  He  came 
to  bring  us  life  for  to-day;  a  life  of  strength  and 
courage  and  ever-growing  worth. 

And  so  we  ask  again,  what  is  the  life  that  God 
offers  men,  through  Jesus  Christ?  What  can  His 
Father's  love  provide  for  us  that  is  better  than  what 
all  the  world's  a-seeking? 

We  must  have  reality  in  the  answer  to  this  ques- 
tion, or  it  is  a  mockery  of  our  ignorance,  however 
pious  it  may  sound.  And  is  not  the  answer  found 
somewhere  here, — that  any  life,  infinitely  worth 
seeking,  must  in  the  nature  of  the  case  be  bound 
up  with  God,  must  lie  in  some  sort  of  genuine  fel- 
lowship with  Him,  and  with  His  permanence  and 
worth?  It  cannot  be  in  any  of  these  quick-passing 
material  conditions,  amid  which  we  are  just  now 
spending  our  few  numbered  days  of  earthly  exist- 
ence. Thus,  e.g.,  it  cannot  lie  in  our  having,  say, 


152  Life  Through  Victory 

five  thousand  more  days  than  most  men  get  of  com- 
fortable eating  and  sleeping  beneath  these  skies. 
We  are  not  cattle,  and  our  ambitions  do  not  rest 
in  being  allowed  to  browse  contentedly  in  green 
pastures  without  end. 

All  life  of  the  spirit  flows  from  God — He  is  the 
life.  And  all  the  satisfying  good  of  life,  and  all 
the  joy  of  it,  and  all  its  abiding  energy  and  fruit- 
fulness,  are  in  Him.  He  is  the  source  and  the  sum 
of  all  that  we  call  life,  forever  and  forever.  Skies 
and  suns  will  wear  out  and  be  forgotten,  like  our 
pains  and  pleasures  of  yesterday,  but  God  remains 
the  source  and  spring  of  life  throughout  eternity. 
And  this  is  what  His  love  plans  for  us — so  Jesus 
taught — that  we  should  share  His  life;  that  we 
should  enter  into  fellowship  with  Him  as  His  chil- 
dren, our  sin  cleansed  and  forgiven,  and  our  hearts 
made  responsive  to  His  thought  and  to  His  love. 
That  would  be  life  worth  longing  for!  It  would 
satisfy  the  irrepressible  hunger  of  our  souls. 

But  think  what  it  would  mean!  And  what  an 
immeasurable  victory  it  implies — to  share  God's  life. 
What  is  that  life  like?  It  is  not  mere  blessedness. 
It  is  love!  Not  self-love,  but  redeeming  love;  love 
energizing  for  others;  love  bearing  such  a  burden 
for  men  in  trouble  as  Jesus  revealed  in  His  life 
and  death.  But  for  such  men  as  we,  how  much  does 
this  mean  of  purification  and  development  and  re- 


Life  Through  Victory  153 

demption!  It  is  not  being  left  alone  to  our  love 
of  ease  and  comfort  that  is  going  to  equip  us  for 
that  divine  future !  Our  natural  indolence,  and  fear 
of  hardness,  and  love  of  pleasure,  and  selfishness, 
and  unresponsiveness  to  the  high  calls  of  God,  these 
are  not  the  qualities  that  lead  up  to  such  life  as  we 
shall  need  for  the  "  ages  of  immortal  service  "  that 
lie  before  us. 

If  we  could  choose  our  own  way,  how  ever  should 
we  grow  into  those  divine  qualities  of  strength  and 
steadfastness  and  ministering  helpfulness  that  are 
only  won  out  of  the  battle?  The  kind  of  life  we 
most  often  long  for,  would  it  brace  our  souls  to 
fortitude?  Should  we  win  from  it  the  bravery  of 
soul,  the  patience,  the  trustfulness  toward  God,  the 
sympathy  for  men,  the  obedience  and  love,  that  are 
to  be  found  unto  praise  and  honor  and  glory  when 
the  long  new  day  of  service  shall  begin  ? 

Oh  no!  Who  of  us  has  wisdom  and  courage  to 
choose  the  life  that  should  yield  us  such  fruits  of 
victory  as  these!  Only  God  can  do  that  for  us. 
And  in  the  words  of  Jesus  Christ,  He  holds  out  to 
us  this  promise  that  He  will  do  it — the  promise  of 
abundant  life.  Surely  it  is  a  promise  out  of  His 
tender  love.  It  is  the  best  that  He  can  do  for  us; 
and  how  costly  it  is  to  God  Himself  we  read  in  the 
story  of  the  Man  of  Sorrows.  Do  we  wish  that 
He  should  fulfil  for  us  that  promise  ?  Will  we  have 


154  Life  Through  Victory 

a  life  that  grows  through  victory,  even  through  bur- 
den-bearing for  others,  rather  than  through  com- 
fortable ease  ?  It  will  lead  us  in  strange  ways !  It 
may  take  us  whither  we  would  not  choose  to  go. 
It  may  teach  us  to  be  brave,  when  we  would  rather 
feel  no  need  of  courage.  It  may  make  us  servants 
of  others,  when  we  would  rather  men  should  wait 
on  us.  It  may  hold  us  helplessly  idle  for  months 
and  years,  when  we  are  all  eager  for  life's  most 
strenuous  effort. 

But  all  along  it  will  be  a  way  of  life,  because  the 
love  of  God  is  leading  us.  All  along  it  will  be  a  way 
of  peace  and  hope  and  divine  cheer,  because  God 
does  not  let  His  servants  walk  in  darkness,  but 
gives  them  as  they  go  the  light  of  life.  If  we  are 
His  and  are  in  His  hands  and  know  we  are  in  His 
hands,  and  trustfully  let  Him  have  His  way  with 
us,  surely  that  is  the  sweetest  and  deepest  joy  in 
life.  The  promised  "  abundant  life  "  is  beginning 
to  have  its  way  with  us  then,  and  our  Lord  and 
Saviour  is  saving  our  life  from  its  weakness  and 
its  fears,  for  His  great  uses  yet  to  come. 

Very  likely  there  will  be  no  visible  glory  about  it, 
or  anything  in  sight  for  men  to  envy  us.  They  may 
even  say  of  such  a  one,  "  Poor  fellow !  his  is  a 
hard  case."  But  the  divine,  invincible  life  is  in  his 
soul,  waiting  to  unfold  its  wings.  If  there  is  any 
good  future  for  God,  there  is  that  much  of  good 


Life  Through  Victory  155 

future  for  this  man !  If  there  is  any  abundance  and 
exultance  of  life  in  God,  there  is  that  much  life 
for  this  man ! 

That  is  where  the  comfort  of  Christ's  promise 
is,  and  its  glory  of  majesty.  That  is  why  He  laid 
down  His  life  for  the  sheep.  Not  to  give  them 
money,  or  ease,  or  fifty  years  of  health  and  pleasure, 
but,  by  breaking  sin,  to  join  their  life  to  God's 
blessedness  and  ministering  love  forever.  And  so 
we  lift  up  our  heads,  even  it  may  be  in  disappoint- 
ment, and  say  to  one  another, 


"Be  strong  ! 

We  are  not  here  to  play,  to  dream,  to  drift; 
We  have  hard  work  to  do,  and  loads  to  lift; 
Shun  not  the  battle,  face  it ! 

'  Tis  God's  gift. 

Be  strong 

It  matters  not  how  deep  intrenched  the  wrong, 
How  hard  the  battle  goes,  the  day  how  long, 
Faint  not,  fight  on, 

To-morrow  comes  the  song  ! " 


XI 
God  First 

' '  Love  not  the  world,  neither  the  things  that  are  in  the 
world.  If  any  man  love  the  world,  the  love  of  the  Father 
is  not  in  him.  For  all  that  is  in  the  world,  the  lust  of  the 
flesh,  and  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  vainglory  of  life,  is  not 
of  the  Father,  but  is  of  the  world.  And  the  world  pas  set  h 
away,  and  the  lust  thereof;  but  he  that  doeth  the  will  of  God 
abideth  for  ever." — i  JOHN  2:  15-17. 

THESE  words  have  fallen  harsh  and  chill  on 
many  a  youthful  heart,  quick  with  the  joy 
of  life.  In  days  past,  they  must  have  been 
a  very  sentence  of  death  on  thousands  of  conscien- 
tious souls,  shutting  them  up  forever  behind  cloister 
and  monastery  walls,  from  all  the  sweetest  relation- 
ships of  life.  I  well  remember  their  leaden  weight 
upon  my  spirit  in  certain  moods,  in  the  days  when 
every  leisure  month  was  spent  in  the  ever  fresh  ex- 
hilaration of  travel  on  the  sea  or  among  the  moun- 
tains,— when  the  fascination  of  God's  beautiful 
world,  both  of  nature  and  of  man,  was  at  its  height. 
How  we  love  it ! 

"The  light  of  setting  suns, 
The  round  ocean  and  the  living  air, 
156 


God  First  157 

And  the  blue  sky,  .  .  .  the  meadows  and  the  woods 
And  mountains,  and  all  that  we  behold 
From  this  green  earth,  of  all  the  mighty  world 
Of  eye  or  ear." 

And  dull  and  heavy  on  our  soul  falls  the  grim 
refusal,  "  Love  not  the  world !  " 

Even  if  we  say  that  these  words  were  not  meant 
as  an  absolute  prohibition  of  the  love  of  the  sunny, 
outward  world  of  sense,  but  are  only  meant  to  de- 
mand the  first  place  for  God,  yet  there  have  been 
times  with  most  of  us  when  the  claims  of  a  future, 
of  even  a  spiritual,  world  have  been  cold  and  ghostly 
by  comparison  with  the  thrilling  invitation  and  se- 
duction of  this  pleasure-garnished  visible  and  out- 
ward home  of  the  body. 

How  are  we  to  think  of  these  words  most  truly? 
How  far  can  we  honestly  enter  into  their  spirit  and 
make  the  choice  that  they  would  have  us  make :  not 
many  years  hence,  when  the  blood  has  cooled  and 
the  senses  no  longer  are  imperious  and  domineering, 
but  now,  when  the  call  of  the  great  beckoning  world 
is  like  the  call  of  the  woods  in  spring.  We  take 
a  few  moments  to  think  out  these  things,  and  to 
declare  to  ourselves  where  we  stand — whether  with 
this  old,  old  man  who  lived  under  the  shadow  of 
the  cross,  or  with  more  modern  apostles,  like  Omar 
Khayyam,  who  bid  us  drink  deep  from  the  offered 
cup. 


158  God  First 

Half  our  task  is  to  become  sure  what  John  meant 
by  the  world,  that  he  saw  already  seduced  and 
doomed,  lying  in  the  evil  one.  It  is  so  easy  to 
juggle  with  the  phrases  of  the  Bible;  to  use  its 
words  to  oppose  and  overthrow  its  prevailing  prin- 
ciples. And  many  foolish  and  revolting  teachings 
have  been  built  up  on  these  words,  wrongly  under- 
stood. It  does  not  mean  the  broad,  fair,  sunlit 
world  of  earth  and  sea  and  sky,  that  is  so  wonder- 
ful, so  glorious,  so  appealing  to  him  whose  senses 
are  trained  and  quick  to  see  and  understand.  The 
Greek  word  is  cosmos — not  the  word  used  for  the 
habitable  earth,  but  the  famous  word  that  stands 
for  the  order  and  beauty  of  the  universe.  John  uses 
it  continually,  in  his  gospel  and  in  his  letters.  And 
it  is  evident  that  he  sometimes  uses  it  in  anything 
but  an  evil  sense,  as  when  he  says  that  the  world 
was  made  by  God,  or  that  God  loved  the  Son  before 
the  world's  foundation. 

There  is  nothing  more  sure  than  that  this  outward 
home  of  our  earthly  body  is  God's  world  and  that 
God  pronounced  it  very  good.  He  is  its  Creator; 
and  as  He  made  man  in  His  own  image,  so  He 
made  the  world  for  man's  brief  home,  adapted  to 
meet  and  gratify  the  senses  and  cravings  and  appe- 
tites that  also  are  from  Him. 

There  would  be  something  wrong  with  the  man 
who  did  not  feel  in  every  fibre  of  his  being  the  al- 


God  First  159 

lurements  and  the  joys  of  his  environment.  If  it 
is  right  and  fitting  to  feel  the  delight  of  good  food 
when  one  is  keen  with  hunger,  or  of  cold  water 
when  one's  throat  is  parched  with  thirst,  or  of  sleep 
when  one's  body  aches  with  fatigue,  so  it  is  a  part 
of  God's  thought  that  we  should  rejoice  in  the  an- 
swer of  His  creation  to  all  the  senses  and  capacities 
with  which  we  are  endowed,  from  the  commonest 
universal  cravings,  that  we  share  with  the  savages, 
up  to  these  highest  and  keenest  joys  that  vibrate  in 
response  to  noble  music,  or  art,  or  the  ineffable 
glories  of  flaming  heavens  at  sunset.  Jesus,  we  may 
be  sure,  was  keenly  sensitive  to  the  appeal  of  nature, 
as  it  called  to  Him  from  those  Galilean  hills,  nor 
can  we  imagine  Him  sympathizing  with  those  who 
would  look  sourly  out  upon  Nature's  smiling  face, 
or  who  would  even  try  to  hold  their  heart  from 
too  keen  a  response  to  her  attractions. 

A  man  may,  of  course,  make  a  curse  of  almost 
any  good  thing  by  intemperance  or  abuse;  but  I 
think  we  need  have  no  fear  of  any  reproach  from 
Jesus  if  we  love  the  world  His  Father  made.  He 
is  the  blessed  and  happy  God,  the  God  of  joy;  and 
this  world,  in  all  its  joy-creating  richness,  is  the 
expression  of  His  thought.  We  may  rejoice  and  be 
glad  in  it,  all  the  more  keenly  because  we  are  His 
children. 

Again  "  the  world  "  is  used  of  the  world  of  men; 


160  God  First 

neither  evil  nor  good,  but  simply  meaning  the  human 
race,  the  children  of  the  Father.  As  John  himself 
said,  "  God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his 
only  begotten  son."  The  greatest  followers  of 
Jesus  have  been  the  greatest  lovers  of  this  world, 
loving  it  with  a  true  passion — like  Francis  Xavier 
and  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  and  John  Wesley  and 
Lord  Shaftesbury  and  Colonel  and  Mrs.  Booth  of 
the  Salvation  Army.  As  John  himself  says,  "  He 
that  loveth  " — in  this  sense — "  is  born  of  God  and 
knoweth  God."  So  we  need  have  no  fear  that  we 
may  go  wrong  through  a  passion  for  humanity. 

Thus  we  come  to  the  meaning  of  the  word  as 
John  used  it.  We  see  at  once  that  it  refers  to  noth- 
ing outward,  external,  visible,  as  a  separate  entity, 
like  the  earth  or  the  world  of  men.  It  is  intensely 
ethical.  It  gathers  up  the  whole  of  creation  that 
is  in  opposition  to  its  Creator's  will,  the  children  of 
disobedience,  the  present  evil  world,  of  which  Satan 
is  said  to  be  the  prince  and  ruler.  Indeed,  John 
goes  on  to  make  clear  how  distinct  and  limited  is 
his  meaning  when  he  gathers  up  all  that  is  in  the 
world  under  three  classes  of  evil  desire — the  lust 
of  the  flesh,  the  lust  of  the  eyes,  and  the  vainglory 
of  life.  It  covers  all  that  is  taken  as  an  end  in 
itself  without  God — all  even  that  might  otherwise 
be  good,  but  that  becomes  a  snare  and  illusion  be- 
cause it  is  regarded  as  sufficient  and  satisfying  of 


God  First  161 

itself  and  so  comes  to  take  the  place  of  God;  all 
with  which  men  try  to  fill  their  hearts  to  the  ex- 
clusion of  Him  who  should  have  first  place. 

But  of  course  it  is  the  human  element  of  which 
John  is  thinking — all  the  worldly  aims  and  ambi- 
tions and  motives,  unlike  God's,  that  are  colored  by 
selfishness  and  pride,  and  all  the  achievements  that 
are  built  on  them,  that  form  no  part  of  the  king- 
dom that  endures.  No  doubt  he  would  have  in- 
cluded all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory 
of  them,  that  the  father  of  lies  once  said  were  his 
to  give  to  whom  he  would.  The  world-rulers  of 
whom  John  knew  were  sensual  and  cruel  men,  and 
the  great  overshadowing  empire  of  Rome  was  like 
a  very  Anti-Christ,  now  that  its  head  had  arrogated 
to  himself  divine  honors  in  place  of  God.  But  even 
where  worldly  dominion  was  not  in  the  hands  of 
wicked  men,  the  very  ideals  of  this  world,  as  Jesus 
pointed  out,  were  rooted  in  the  desire  for  lordly 
authority,  instead  of  in  the  ministering  love  that  was 
the  foundation  of  His  kingdom.  And  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  age-long  preference  of  the  creature  to 
the  creator,  of  the  things  seen  to  the  things  unseen, 
had  resulted  in  making  the  prevailing  spirit  of  so- 
ciety one  at  active  enmity  with  God  and  with  His 
ways:  one  also  that  was  degrading  to  the  divine 
in  man,  defiling  to  the  soul;  so  that  James  begged 
men  to  keep  themselves  unspotted  from  the  world, 


1 62  God  First 

as  though  it  stained  and  contaminated  by  its  very 
touch. 

Not  only  is  this  world  all  interwoven  and  held  to- 
gether by  undisciplined  desire,  but  it  is  the  world  that 
passeth  away.  In  comparison  with  the  world  of 
obedience  to  God's  will,  that  abideth  forever,  it  is  all 
Maya — illusion — its  pomp  and  glory  and  wisdom 
and  power  all  are  drifting  away  like  passing  clouds 
that  dim  the  sun,  and  that  will  presently  drift  past 
and  disappear  while  the  sun  shines  on.  For  these  rea- 
sons, said  John,  because  this  world  is  drifting,  un- 
substantial, doomed  to  be  forgotten,  and  because  the 
love  of  it  straightway  displaces  the  love  of  the 
Father  and  so  corrupts  the  spirit  with  misplaced 
desire,  for  this  cause,  he  says,  "  Love  not  the 
world." 

You  remember  there  was  once  a  man  living  a 
sturdily  honorable  and  courageous  life  as  the  friend 
and  associate  of  Paul.  His  name  was  Demas;  of 
whom  we  only  know  that  he  forsook  that  honorable 
life,  and  his  aged  friend,  having  "  loved  this  present 
world."  That  is  the  epitaph  upon  his  character. 
And  what  an  innumerable  procession  of  men  and 
women  have  followed  after  him  since  that  day,  los- 
ing their  divine  birthright,  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  they  loved  the  present  world — the  world  that 
does  without  God. 

Take  a  few  moments  to  consider  how  barren  an 


God  First  163 

ambition  it  is  to  build  up  the  wealth  or  glory  of  the 
world  as  an  end  in  itself,  or  to  link  one's  life  with 
it.  How  miserable  a  reward  it  gives  to  him  who 
lives  for  it  but  is  not  rich  toward  God.  We  do  not 
refer  now  to  what  is  openly  vicious  or  evil.  But 
many  a  man  of  honest  purpose  has  slowly  come  to 
give  his  life  to  this  world  alone,  in  order  to  increase 
its  knowledge,  to  add  to  its  wealth,  or  to  enlarge  its 
power  over  nature.  And  when  he  has  done  all,  what 
has  he  done,  if  he  has  wrought  without  thought  of 
God? 

The  achievements  that  make  up  our  twentieth  cen- 
tury civilization,  of  which  we  are  so  overwhelmingly 
proud,  are  not  necessarily  worth  living  and  dying 
for.  They  are  not  all  gain.  As  Dean  McCormack 
has  said,  we  are  not  better  off  than  our  fathers  be- 
cause we  can  talk  by  telephone  across  a  space  that 
they  could  only  span  by  letter  in  weeks  of  travel. 
The  question  of  gain  or  loss  is  decided  by  what 
we  say  into  that  telephone — whether  it  be  nobler 
and  wiser  and  worthier  than  what  our  fathers  might 
have  said.  The  great  discoveries  may  easily  be  mere 
instruments  of  our  decay. 

Consider  the  English  race!  For  centuries  they 
have  been  among  the  leaders  of  Western  civiliza- 
tion. They  have  been  the  inheritors  and  users  of 
all  the  discoveries  and  inventions  of  modern  times. 
All  the  labor-saving  machinery,  the  devices  and  ap- 


164  God  First 

pliances  for  increasing  wealth  and  multiplying  pro- 
duction, the  means  of  adding  to  life's  security  and 
comfort  and  luxury,  have  been  the  possessions  of 
the  English  people;  and  what  science  and  industry 
and  invention  can  do  for  a  nation  in  these  last  days 
has  been  done  for  her.  Her  civilization  is  the 
product  of  these  vast  agencies  for  enriching  life. 
And  how  far  is  the  result  divinely  good  ?  How  far 
is  it  worth  these  centuries  of  striving  by  unknown 
multitudes  of  workers? 

We  need  not  dwell  upon  the  fact  that  a  large 
share  of  all  this  product  of  modern  civilization 
is  devoted  year  by  year  to  improving  ways  and 
means  for  slaughtering  men  in  case  of  war; 
which  surely  is  not  of  the  Father,  but  of 
the  world.  But  we  should  dwell  long  and  ear- 
nestly upon  the  fact  that  as  the  crown  of  all  this 
long  struggle  of  civilization,  in  London,  the  capital 
city  of  the  world,  nearly  a  quarter  of  its  people  are 
said  to  be  more  miserably  fed  and  housed  than  some 
savage  races  that  still  live  like  their  ancestors  of 
the  stone  age.  Eight  million  people  in  England  have 
but  the  narrowest  margin  between  themselves  and 
starvation.  One  in  five  of  all  the  adults  of  London 
die  either  in  the  workhouse,  the  hospital,  or  the 
asylum,  a  public  charge,  going  sullenly  from  a  life 
that  has  been  of  a  leaden  gray,  so  stripped  was  it 
of  wholesome  joy.  And  conditions  similar  to  these 


God  First  165 

are  steadily  making  their  way  into  all  the  greater 
cities  of  the  world,  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 

If  the  inventions  and  discoveries  and  all  the  scien- 
tific progress  of  our  day  is  steadily  to  eventuate 
in  increasing  the  luxury  of  the  fortunate,  while  it 
grinds  the  unfortunate  to  powder,  who  could  be  sat- 
isfied with  even  the  career  of  the  greatest  inventor  of 
our  day?  And  such  I  believe  is  its  inevitable  end, 
so  far  as  it  has  its  inspiration  not  in  God  but  in  the 
glory  of  the  world.  It  is  only  the  presence  among 
us  of  diviner  motives  and  diviner  ambitions  that 
has  kept  our  knowledge  and  our  wealth  from  mak- 
ing of  civilization  a  thing  selfish  and  satanically 
cruel.  The  world  that  John  saw  lying  in  the  wicked 
one  is  all  about  us,  and  the  pride  and  power  of  the 
twentieth  century  are  largely  at  its  service. 

It  is  for  the  men  who  put  God  first  to  stand  like 
a  rock  for  the  kingdom  of  Christ  among  men.  For 
that  kingdom  of  actual  brotherly  love  does  not  make 
headway  against  the  world  save  by  stern,  indomita- 
ble effort  and  self-denial,  that  are  rooted  in  prayer 
and  in  fellowship  with  God.  It  is  not  enough  to 
say  that  we  are  doing  our  share  by  adding  to  the 
world's  knowledge  or  the  world's  comfort  or  the 
world's  wealth.  Who  knows  whether  the  added 
knowledge  and  wealth  and  comfort  will  bring  men 
nearer  God  or  hide  Him  further  from  their  sight? 
Nay !  if  through  advancing  science  the  very  last 


1 66  God  First 

secret  has  been  wrung  from  nature,  the  very  last 
specimen  found  and  classified,  and  the  comfort  and 
luxury  of  the  dominant  classes  of  society  increased 
a  hundredfold,  what  should  keep  our  civilization 
from  being  more  material,  more  sensual,  and  more 
selfish  than  it  is  to-day?  If  our  life-work  is  to 
go  simply  to  increasing  the  sum  of  human  achieve- 
ments that  must  ultimately  drift  away  because  in 
them  is  nothing  of  timeless  value,  then  we  are  build- 
ing a  life-work  upon  the  sands.  It  is  piteously  easy, 
with  the  world's  glamour  fairly  dazzling  in  our  eyes, 
to  love  the  glory  that  is  of  men  more  than  the  glory 
that  is  of  God.  In  the  words  of  Jesus,  "  The  glory 
that  cometh  from  the  only  God  "  we  seek  not,  be- 
cause the  world  has  our  hearts.  But  when  we  have 
won  the  worldly  glory,  nay,  when  we  have  fairly 
captured  the  world,  what  shall  it  profit  us  in  the 
long,  long  day  that  is  to  come?  It  is  a  barren  am- 
bition and  it  carries  a  cheap  reward  simply  to  build 
up  the  wealth  or  glory  of  civilization,  if  that  is 
all — if  the  love  of  the  Father  is  not  behind  it,  to 
link  our  work  with  His  and  bind  us  to  Himself 
in  its  doing. 

So  we  come  back  to  this  grim  prohibition  with 
which  we  started  and  ask  again,  What  does  it  mean  ? 

It  does  not  mean  that  we  should  not  rejoice  in 
all  the  good  things  of  the  world  to  which  our  bodies 
have  been  framed  to  answer.  Rather  are  we  to 


God  First  167 

use  the  good  things  of  the  world  as  not  abusing 
them.  Would  that  our  higher  senses  were  even 
trained  to  a  keener  sensitiveness,  so  that  we  might 
respond  more  deeply  to  the  beauties  and  pleasures 
that  are  our  proper  joy. 

Again  it  does  not  mean  that  we  should  flee  from 
the  evil  world  because  we  recognize  its  dangers  for 
the  soul.  It  does  not  bid  us  do  as  thousands  of 
those  who  first  read  these  words  thought  it  bade 
them  do — seek  out  some  quiet  place  of  refuge  where 
the  waves  of  temptation  should  not  beat  so  fiercely. 
They  streamed  out  into  the  deserts  and  mountains, 
living  in  caves  as  hermits,  where  the  vainglory  of 
life  should  be  far  away  and  where  nothing  should 
appear  to  tempt  the  eye.  What  they  found  there 
God  only  knows !  But  they  did  not  find  His  will— 
they  who  thus  fled  away  from  the  seducing  world. 
Their  place  was,  like  a  true  soldier's,  at  the  heart  of 
the  danger. 

In  a  few  years,  many  of  us  who  are  here  will 
find  ourselves  where  the  waves  of  this  threefold 
evil  desire  beat  upon  us  as  the  sea  beats  upon  a 
harbor  wall.  Every  day  will  make  us  realize  anew 
that  we  are  in  the  world  against  which  John  warned 
us.  That  is  all  right.  Let  us  not  think  it  strange, 
or  an  impossible  situation  for  a  Christian.  It  is 
what  our  Lord  looked  forward  to  for  His  disciples. 
"  As  the  Father  sent  me  into  the  world,  even  so 


1 68  God  First 

have  I  sent  you  into  the  world."  It  was  the  right 
place  for  them,  even  though  in  the  world  they  should 
have  tribulation.  To  be  sure,  it  was  an  alien  at- 
mosphere and  environment,  but  it  was  the  element 
in  which  they  were  to  do  their  work  and  win  their 
souls.  They  were  as  safe  amid  its  uproar  of  Vanity 
Fair  as  they  could  be  in  the  peace  of  heaven,  if  only 
they  went  in  His  spirit  and  with  His  companionship. 

There  is  something  thrilling  in  the  sight  of  a 
great  steamer  putting  out  to  sea  on  schedule  time 
when  a  heavy  storm  is  blowing.  It  may  be  a  howl- 
ing mid-winter  blizzard  in  New  York.  The  cold 
is  piercing,  the  wind  roars  overhead,  and  one  thinks 
how  the  ocean,  but  a  few  miles  away,  must  be  a 
fury  of  raging  waters,  lashed  by  such  a  gale.  But 
at  twelve  o'clock  the  great  ocean  liner,  lying  com- 
fortably and  safely  at  her  dock,  slips  out  into  the 
stream,  with  all  her  precious  lives  on  board,  and  in 
a  few  hours,  swept  by  the  spray  from  quivering 
stem  to  stern,  she  is  battling  with  the  North  At- 
lantic in  its  most  deadly  mood.  Her  designers  built 
her  for  that  very  thing,  she  is  under  orders  to  carry 
the  mails  on  that  very  day,  and  she  carries  them 
unafraid,  because,  however  she  may  be  battered  by 
the  waves,  her  plates  are  firm  and  the  waves  can 
find  no  point  of  entrance. 

So  our  Lord  sends  His  disciples  out  into  the  world, 
unafraid,  where  the  lust  of  the  flesh  and  the  lust 


God  First  169 

of  the  eye  and  the  vainglory  of  life  are  on  every 
side  assailing.  He  sends  them  there  not  idly,  but 
on  a  great  commission,  as  He  came  Himself,  not  to 
judge  the  world,  but  to  save  the  world.  Not  to  be 
separated  from  the  love  of  the  Father,  but  to  carry 
that  love  with  them  in  their  hearts,  and  in  the 
strength  of  it  to  plant  His  kingdom  ever  more  and 
more  firmly  here  on  earth  among  the  men  who  would 
be  forgetting  Him. 

We  see  then  that  this  prohibition  is  not  meant  to 
rob  our  lives  of  love  or  joy,  to  make  them  gray  or 
cold,  but  to  fill  them  with  the  love  which  enriches 
every  love,  the  love  of  the  Father,  and  to  cheer  them 
with  that  joy  which  outlasts  every  joy,  the  joy  of 
our  Lord. 

It  is  not  meant  to  make  this  life  grudging,  but  to 
make  it  abundant,  as  God  can.  And  holding  us 
steadfastly  in  the  midst  of  alien  elements  on  every 
side,  it  gives  us  our  share  in  hastening  that  day 
when  even  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  shall  have 
become  the  kingdoms  of  our  Lord  and  of  His  Christ, 
and  the  chorus  shall  go  up  "  Hallelujah !  for  the 
Lord  God  omnipotent  reigneth." 


XII 
Simon  of  Cyrene 

"  On  him  they  laid  the  cross,  that  he  might  bear  it  after 
Jesus." — LUKE  23:26. 

THAT  was  Simon  of  Cyrene !  Coming  quietly 
into  the  city  on  a  feast  day,  to  be  saluted 
by  this  tragedy  and  insult. 

It  was  the  most  astounding  and  dramatic  mo- 
ment of  his  life.  He  was  not  an  African,  or  a 
peasant  from  the  fields,  as  some  have  supposed,  but 
a  respectable  Jew.  Like  Paul  he  was  a  citizen  of 
no  mean  city,  only  in  his  case  the  city  was  Cyrene, 
in  Libya,  about  halfway  between  Carthage  and 
Alexandria.  It  was  a  famous  old  Greek  town,  beau- 
tiful, prosperous,  and  cultured.  For  hundreds  of 
years  a  large  part  of  its  population  had  been  Jewish, 
the  descendants  of  old  exiles  who  had  been  sent  there 
in  crowds  as  far  back  as  the  reign  of  Manasseh. 
They  were  so  numerous  and  influential  that  they 
had  their  own  synagogue  in  Jerusalem.  And  this 
Simon  was  one  of  them,  who  had  come  up  to  the 
feast. 

170 


Simon  of  Cyrene  171 

On  that  bright  April  day  he  was  coming  into  the 
city,  well-dressed,  respectable,  busy  with  his  own 
thoughts.  And  suddenly,  to  his  disgust,  as  he  turned 
into  the  gate,  he  was  encountered  by  the  noisy  rabble 
that  ever  follows  a  party  of  criminals  to  the  execu- 
tion ground.  There,  before  his  eyes,  were  the  three 
poor  blood-stained  creatures  going  to  their  death. 
One  of  the  three,  weak  from  the  torture  of  the 
scourging,  was  fainting  beneath  the  load  of  the  cross 
he  bore,  and  the  procession  for  a  moment  was  stand- 
ing still.  The  party  was  in  a  hurry.  The  day  had 
worn  on,  the  next  day  was  the  Sabbath,  and  there 
was  need  of  haste  if  the  wretched  business  was  to 
be  completed  before  sundown.  So  the  soldiers 
would  have  goaded  Jesus  on,  as  still  they  do  in  like 
ease,  so  long  as  His  strength  could  respond  to  pain. 
But  the  end  came  while  Simon  was  looking  at  Him, 
when  even  the  soldiers  saw  that  He  must  have  help 
if  the  execution  were  not  to  be  delayed. 

What  fixed  their  attention  on  Simon,  out  of  all 
the  crowd,  we  do  not  know.  He  was  a  stranger  and 
without  friends,  to  be  sure;  but  that  was  no  reason 
why  they  should  put  on  him  this  loathsome  insult 
of  having  to  bear  a  criminal's  cross  through  crowded 
streets  to  the  execution  ground.  Possibly  he  had 
known  Jesus,  and  some  malignant  voice  in  the  mob 
proclaimed  the  fact,  and  pointed  him  out  as  a  friend. 
More  likely  he  had  heard  of  Him  as  a  good  man; 


172  Simon  of  Cyrene 

and  coming  thus  face  to  face  with  Him,  in  mortal 
distress,  tortured,  helpless,  brought  to  bay  among 
His  enemies,  had  uttered  some  generous  words  of 
sympathy  or  indignation  that  angered  the  soldiers 
and  made  them  think  of  this  scurvy  retort. 

If  he  pitied  the  man  so  much,  under  His  load,  let 
him  bear  it  himself  and  so  relieve  the  situation.  And 
at  the  suggestion  they  dragged  him  out  of  the  crowd 
of  bystanders  and,  silencing  his  angry  protests,  com- 
pelled him  to  pick  up  the  cross  or  beam — for  proba- 
bly it  was  but  a  single  timber — and  join  the  pitiful 
group  within  the  circle  of  the  guard.  And  there 
was  he,  Simon,  an  honorable  citizen  of  Cyrene,  actu- 
ally forced  along  the  street  like  an  outcast,  bearing 
the  stained  cross  of  a  condemned  criminal.  And 
the  crowd,  ever  quick  to  turn  against  one  in  a  pre- 
dicament, was  following  him  with  jeers  and  insults, 
as  though  he  really  were  what  his  shameful  position 
seemed  for  the  moment  to  declare  him — a  fellow- 
victim.  The  shame  of  it  must  have  entered  his  very 
soul;  because  "on  him  they  laid  the  cross,  that  he 
might  bear  it  after  Jesus." 

But  do  you  think  that  the  brutal  injustice  and 
searing  humiliation  were  all  that  fixed  his  attention 
in  those  moments  before  Calvary  was  reached  ?  We 
know  they  were  not.  Even  if  we  pay  no  attention 
to  tradition,  we  know  that  his  two  sons,  Alexander 
and  Rufus,  were  well-known  Christians  of  a  later 


Simon  of  Cyrene  173 

time,  and  it  is  at  least  probable  that  his  wife  is 
mentioned  as  one  who  had  showed  hospitality  to 
Paul.  Something  came  over  his  life  that  made  his 
family  disciples  of  that  same  crucified  Jesus. 

We  can  partly  guess  what  it  was.  He  was  bear- 
ing the  cross  after  Jesus — for  Him.  Do  you  sup- 
pose Jesus  ever  accepted  even  a  cup  of  cold  water, 
or  a  trifling  kindness  from  a  little  child,  without 
such  heartfelt  thanks  as  stayed  by  the  giver?  And 
now  when  He  was  at  the  worst,  in  mortal  need,  and 
with  no  friend  by  to  help — with  no  Peter  to  help 
Him  with  the  cross,  or  John,  or  faithful  Thomas 
to  give  Him  even  a  shoulder  to  lean  upon — and  this 
stranger  was  forced  to  come  to  His  help  and  share 
His  shame,  do  you  think  Jesus  was  unmoved  or 
ungrateful  ? 

As  they  two  walked  together,  and  as  the  dread 
moment  came  when  Simon's  share  ended  and  he 
laid  down  the  cross  to  leave  it  and  go  back  to  his 
peaceful  life,  leaving  the  Saviour  with  it  to  finish 
there  His  work  of  love,  we  may  be  sure  that  some- 
thing, never  to  be  forgotten,  passed  between  them 
— between  Jesus  Christ  and  the  man  who,  for  a  few 
moments,  had  carried  His  cross.  It  may  have  been 
words,  it  may  have  been  only  a  look,  or  the  pressure 
of  a  hand :  but  I  believe  it  did  its  work — gave  him, 
perhaps  even  at  that  moment,  a  glimpse  of  the  truth 
that  no  higher  privilege  or  joy  could  come  into  the 


174  Simon  of  Cyrene 

life  of  a  human  soul  on  earth  than  to  help  bear 
the  heavy  burden  of  that  Master,  to  carry  ever  so 
little  of  the  weight  of  that  shameful  cross. 

At  first,  Simon  must  needs  have  had  only  a  sense 
of  injustice  and  of  grievance.  He  had  done  nothing 
to  deserve  so  disgraceful  a  burden.  What  propriety 
or  fitness  or  purpose  was  there  in  making  him  shoul- 
der, even  for  a  moment,  that  cross  of  shame !  But 
then,  had  Jesus  deserved  it  ?  Was  there  any  reason 
or  justice  in  His  bearing  it  or  being  lifted  up  upon 
it  from  the  earth?  If  Jesus  carried  it  patiently  to 
the  end,  unprotesting,  trustful  of  God,  might  not 
he,  Simon,  be  called  to  a  share  in  the  same  faith 
and  patience? 

So  he  would  see,  what  may  we  see  to-day,  that 
God's  thought  in  putting  a  cross  on  men  is  not  our 
thought.  He  has  in  it  a  higher  principle  than  that 
of  giving  us  our  deserts.  Its  weight  is  not  propor- 
tioned to  our  demerit.  He  does  not  even  point  out 
the  precise  fitness  or  propriety  or  purpose  in  our 
bearing  it.  He  has  a  purpose  in  it,  be  sure!  Jesus 
knew  what  it  was  for  Him,  Simon  did  not.  But 
for  both  Simon  and  Jesus  that  shameful,  heavy  bur- 
den was  their  privilege,  their  high  honor,  their  sa- 
cred service.  Jesus  bore  it  for  the  world's  joy — 
for  you  and  me!  Joy  was  set  before  Him,  at  the 
far  end  of  the  way  of  the  cross;  so  He  despised 
the  shame.  And  Simon — he  bore  it  for  the  Master ; 


Simon  of  Cyrene  175 

and  the  very  fact  that  he  "  bore  it  after  Jesus  "  was 
the  saving  of  himself  and  of  his  household. 

There  was  no  mistake  about  it  then,  after  all,  out- 
rage as  it  was.  No  injustice,  no  unreason,  no  acci- 
dental or  capricious  fortune.  The  crowd  might  have 
jeered  itself  hoarse  at  the  ridiculous  incongruity  of 
it,  and  his  friends  might  have  condoled  with  him 
at  the  cruel  wrong  of  it,  but  in  the  end  he  would 
know  that  there  was  neither  joke,  nor  wrong,  nor 
blunder  there,  but  the  plan  of  God  to  give  him  a 
blessed  share  in  his  Saviour's  labor  of  love. 

Consider  now  several  of  the  common  principles 
of  life  that  are  illustrated  by  this  incident.  First, 
there  are  the  difficulties  and  unkindnesses  of  our  lot 
in  general !  Sometimes  these  troubles  that  we  have 
come  to,  these  hardnesses  of  our  life  that  we  call 
crosses,  seem  as  cruel  and  uncalled-for  as  did  that 
outrage  upon  Simon.  Mysterious,  we  call  them  re- 
spectfully. It  is  not  so  much  that  they  are  painful, 
or  difficult  to  bear;  we  could  muster  the  requisite 
courage  and  strength  for  that,  if  only  we  could  see 
any  purpose  in  them,  could  see  what  they  were  lead- 
ing to.  But  they  appear  mere  useless  drags  on  our 
life,  mere  senseless,  stunning  blows  upon  our  for- 
tune. Accidents — capricious,  inopportune;  perhaps 
the  results  of  others'  blundering  or  folly.  Or  our 
cross  is  an  obvious  misfit,  a  misadjustment  to  our 
strength  and  temper.  Another's  we  could  bear  more 


1 76  Simon  of  Cyrene 

easily,  we  could  see  some  reason  or  discipline  in  it; 
but  ours  is  a  dead  weight,  unrelieved  by  any  visible 
use  or  reason ;  we  bear  it  fretfully,  in  the  dark. 

Never  did  a  man  have  so  mockingly  capricious 
a  lot  to  bear  as  Simon.  It  was  sheer  ill  luck  that  he 
had  blundered  into  it.  If  he  had  been  a  moment 
later  or  earlier,  if  the  soldiers  had  not  had  the  ill 
fortune  to  turn  on  him,  he  would  have  escaped. 
There  was  no  sense  or  fitness  in  laying  that  disgrace 
on  him.  If  he  had  been  an  apostle,  or  a  disciple,  or 
a  relative,  or  if  he  were  a  beggar  or  a  criminal,  there 
would  have  been  at  least  some  show  of  sense  in  it. 
But  as  it  was,  he  was  the  mere  sport  of  circum- 
stance ! 

So  he  must  have  thought  at  the  time.  But  do 
you  suppose  he  thought  that,  when  his  career  was 
done?  On  the  contrary,  those  brutal  soldiers  had 
been,  little  as  they  knew  it,  the  means  by  which 
God's  grace  had  entered  his  life. 

God  does  not  deal  with  His  children  by  accidents. 
He  does  not  blunder  with  the  sorrows  He  allows  in 
their  life  any  more  than  with  His  gifts  of  grace.  He 
chooses  strange  ways  to  lay  crosses  upon  us,  ways 
that  have  all  the  marks  of  sheer  senseless  unrea- 
son, as  with  Simon,  ways  that  we  can  demonstrate 
at  the  time  to  have  nothing  divine  or  loving  in 
them.  But  in  the  end,  I  believe  we  shall  see  that 
they  were  fitted  to  do  His  work  for  us  if  we  would 


Simon  of  Cyrene  177 

let  them;  fit,  if  we  would  carry  them  patiently,  to  be, 
like  that  cross  of  Jesus,  a  messenger  of  mercy.  Let 
us  wait  till  we  see  the  end  before  we  think  we  have 
excuse  to  be  bitter,  yes,  or  even  impatient,  before 
God. 

This  only  brings  us  to  our  main  theme.  Nearly 
every  one  of  us,  no  doubt,  would  like  to  follow 
Jesus  if  we  could  choose  the  time  and  place  and 
manner  of  following.  But  you  know  the  fact. 
That  Jesus  Christ  will  not  have  any  soul  of  man 
as  His  follower  on  terms  like  these.  He  leaves  us 
in  no  doubt,  He  is  explicit  enough  to  satisfy  the 
most  doubtful;  He  gives  us  plain  terms,  of  dignity 
and  honor,  demanding  courage  that  true  men  an- 
swer to.  He  said,  "If  any  man  would  come  after 
me,  let  him  take  up  his  cross  and  follow  me." 

He  does  not  want  to  discourage  us ;  it  is  not  that 
He  does  not  want  followers.  He  never  longed  for 
them  more  than  at  the  moment  when  He  spoke 
these  words.  He  only  wants  us  to  know  the  truth, 
that  the  Christian  life  is  neither  a  jest,  nor  a  merry- 
making, nor  a  parade  through  aisles  of  continuous 
applause.  But  that,  beginning  in  earnestness  and 
self-denial,  it  carries  a  cross  to  the  very  end,  with 
need  of  patience  and  humility  and  exertion  all  the 
way.  There  are  plenty  of  paths  to  follow,  to-day 
and  to-morrow,  that  lie  just  ready  to  our  feet,  how 
indefinitely  easier  to  tread ;  they  demand  no  bravery 


178  Simon  of  Cyrene 

or  courage,  no  honor  or  unflinching  determination; 
we  can  change  our  mind  in  them  as  often  as  we 
choose,  and  be  as  indolent  and  self-indulgent  as  the 
fancy  of  any  fool  could  dictate.  And  we  shall  not 
lack  either  leaders  or  good  company!  But  Jesus 
Christ!  There  is  no  way  of  disguising  the  fact  that 
He  walked  in  a  way  of  temptation,  where  He  lived 
His  life  and  won  His  victory  only  with  strong  cry- 
ing and  tears.  And  for  others  than  Himself,  whose 
troubles  He  need  not  have  added  to  His  own,  He 
bore  a  cross — the  cross  made  up  of  the  sin  and  sor- 
row and  shame  of  men  and  women  who  did  not  care 
for  Him,  and  who  little  thanked  Him  for  His 
sacrifice. 

And  what  is  the  prospect  for  one  of  us,  who 
honestly  and  doggedly  will  choose  and  follow  such 
a  leader  ?  Surely  he,  too,  will  have  to  fight  his  fight ; 
to  endure  hardness ;  fighting  his  own  battles  that  are 
hard  enough,  and  in  addition,  by  the  mercy  of  God, 
fighting  some  battles  for  his  fellows — carrying  a 
cross  for  them. 

You  know  that  there  are  multitudes  of  men  to- 
day who  would  dodge  this  necessity.  Who  would 
gladly  let  Jesus  Christ,  whom  they  call  Lord  and 
Master,  do  all  the  cross-bearing  and  bear  the  whole 
weight  of  the  burden,  making  for  them  an  easy  way 
to  heaven,  with  no  disconcerting  call  to  courage  and 
self-denial.  They  would  gladly  follow  Christ  on 


Simon  of  Cyrene  179 

terms  like  these,  well  back  among  the  crowd,  where 
there  should  be  no  danger  of  their  being  associated 
with  the  Saviour,  or  involved  in  His  grinding  bur- 
dens, until  all  the  cross-bearing  was  done,  all  the 
price  paid,  and  only  the  pleasant  rewards  of  His 
sacrifice  to  reap. 

Some  of  us,  in  some  moods,  would  know  what 
it  is,  I  am  sure,  practically  to  ask  the  Lord  to  save 
us  the  trouble  of  being  a  man.  And  thank  God !  to 
all  such  comes  the  kind  and  pitiful,  but  eternally 
unrelenting  answer,  No !  He  will  have  us  as  true 
men,  or  He  will  not  have  us.  If  we  are  still  look- 
ing around  to  see  if  any  in  the  watching  crowd 
would  laugh  at  us,  or  if  any  of  our  comfortable 
independence  would  be  intruded  on,  then  He  has 
still  to  wait.  He  would  have  us  choose  the  hard 
way  of  honor,  if  it  be  a  hard  way,  and  come  out 
fairly  in  the  open  as  with  Him.  Simon  was  pushed 
out  clear  into  the  middle  of  the  street  where  Jesus 
stood,  and  where  the  bystanders  on  either  side 
could  point  at  him  to  their  heart's  content.  And  it 
is  good  for  a  man  to  have,  like  iron  in  his  blood, 
like  new  life  pulsing  in  his  veins,  the  sense  that  he 
and  his  Master  stand  together,  identified  by  the 
crowd,  whether  they  cheer  or  jeer  at  two  such  com- 
panions on  such  an  errand.  Mind  you,  the  Lord 
will  be  right  true  to  you  His  companion  day  by 
day,  past  all  days,  forever.  God  help  us  to  stand 


180  Simon  of  Cyrene 

with  Him  to-day,  that  when  the  heavens  and  the 
earth  are  removed  He  still  may  stand  with  us,  im- 
movable and  faithful  to  His  servant. 

One  step  more,  see  the  privilege  and  the  honor 
of  the  task  and  the  opportunity  laid  upon  us.  Little 
as  Simon  knew  what  he  wras  doing,  he  came  to  the 
help  of  Jesus  Christ;  he  bore  a  part  of  the  weight 
of  the  Saviour's  cross.  To  be  sure,  he  was  a  poor 
sinner,  himself;  no  infinite  and  sinless  one  who 
could  share  in  that  perfect  atoning  sacrifice  for  the 
world's  sin.  And  yet,  he  helped  the  Son  of  Man 
to  bear  His  burden;  some  of  the  weight  and  the 
shame  and  the  burden  of  that  bitter  work  fell  on 
him,  Simon  of  Cyrene.  Only  a  little — an  incon- 
siderable trifle — for  a  moment  or  two.  And  yet 
he  helped.  He  who  must  needs  himself  be  saved 
by  his  Lord's  mercy,  mercifully  ministered  to  his 
Lord. 

Let  us  not  lose  any  of  the  plain  simplicity  of 
God's  message  to  our  souls  at  this  point,  by  sup- 
posing that  here  we  begin  to  diverge  into  mere  senti- 
ment, or  unpractical  mysticism.  For  it  is  only  sober 
truth,  and  no  devout  exaggeration,  to  say  that  men 
and  women  still  are  called  to  come  up  to  the  help 
of  their  Master ;  to  share  His  burden  for  the  world ; 
to  bear  the  cross  on  His  behalf.  Paul,  you  remem- 
ber, uses  those  very  words :  "  To  you  it  hath  been 
granted  not  only  to  believe  on  him  but  also  to 


Simon  of  Cyrene  181 

suffer  in  his  behalf."  He  spoke  of  himself  as 
"  filling  up  what  was  behind  of  the  sufferings  of 
Christ." 

If  you  and  I  had  lived  long  enough  ago,  we 
might  have  used  our  money  or  our  hands  actually 
to  minister  to  the  personal  needs  of  Jesus  on  earth. 
Should  we  count  that  a  privilege?  But  now,  if  a 
man  truly  loves  and  honors  Him,  what  is  there  he 
can  do?  And  instantly  we  hear  Jesus  answer, 
"  Lovest  thou  me?  Feed  my  sheep."  ''  Inasmuch 
as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these 
my  brethren,  ye  have  done  it  unto  me." 

The  sheep  of  His  flock  are  scattered  abroad  upon 
the  mountain  sides  until  this  day,  distressed  and 
scattered.  He  gave  His  life  that  mercy  and  joy 
might  reach  them;  but  neither  that  joy  or  mercy 
have  reached  them  yet,  and  they  will  not,  save  as 
some  one  comes  up  to  His  help  and  bears  a  part  of 
His  burden  after  Him,  on  behalf  of  the  lost  sheep. 
The  burden-bearing  is  not  over  yet. 

How  do  you  think  Jesus  Christ  looks  out  on  the 
colossal  sorrows  and  cruelties  of  the  heathen  world  ? 
The  crying  in  pain  of  tens  of  thousands  of  little 
girls  with  bound  feet,  the  growing  up  of  millions 
of  children  in  such  an  atmosphere  of  killing  vice 
that  before  they  are  men  and  women  they  are 
stained  through  and  through  with  sin;  the  heart- 
breaking loneliness  and  bitterness  of  the  multitudes 


i8a  Simon  of  Cyrene 

of  women  in  Asia,  from  whose  ranks  the  crowded, 
never-ending  procession  of  suicides  is  recruited  day 
by  day?  The  groans  of  bleeding  Africa  have  come 
up  before  God  these  many  centuries,  though  no  man 
knew  of  those  awful  miseries  palpitating  there  in 
the  dark,  felt  only  by  God  and  by  the  victims. 

The  only  hands  that  have  ever  turned  back  the 
great  tides  of  human  sorrow  have  been  the  hands 
that  bore  the  print  of  the  nails.  And  still  it  is 
true  that  hands  like  His,  with  the  mark  of  sacrifice 
upon  them,  are  the  only  hands  that  will  reach  to 
such  a  work  as  this.  Hands  with  itching  palms, 
hungry  for  the  dollar,  will  never  do  it — only  love 
will  share  this  work  with  the  Master.  And  such 
hands  are  stretched  out  to-day  by  the  thousand, 
ready  to  seize  the  cross. 

Why,  Africa,  alone,  within  a  century,  has  its  roll 
of  unknown  hundreds  of  men  and  women  who  have 
come  up  to  the  help  of  their  Master.  You  might 
be  able,  if  you  relished  such  a  search,  to  find  among 
them  here  and  there  a  man  who  went  to  the  work 
with  meaner  motives.  But  practically  every  one  of 
that  great  company  stepped  out  after  his  Lord  into 
the  street  called  Via  Dolorosa,  with  noblest  motives 
of  divine  love.  When  young  Mackay  went  out  to 
Uganda,  the  youngest  but  one  of  a  party  of  eight 
stalwart  Englishmen,  he  said  to  an  audience  before 
he  left :  "  Within  six  months  you  will  probably  hear 


Simon  of  Cyrene  183 

that  one  of  us  is  dead.  When  the  news  comes,  do 
not  be  cast  down,  but  send  some  one  immediately  to 
take  the  vacant  place."  Within  three  years  he  was 
the  only  one  left  in  Africa  of  that  original  band. 
And  this  is  but  typical  of  all  the  pioneering  work 
of  Christ's  kingdom  in  the  Dark  Continent.  Life 
has  been  poured  out  there  like  water,  as  was  the 
life  of  Jesus.  And  it  has  been  a  willing  offering  of 
joy — of  great  cost,  but  worth  the  price. 

But  they  who  have  gone  out  into  all  the  world 
after  the  lost  sheep  are  not  the  only  ones  called 
to  bear  a  part  of  the  Lord's  burden.  Are  there  no 
marks  of  sacrifice  on  your  life  and  mine?  In  all 
our  Lord's  cross-bearing  for  this  present  living  gen- 
eration is  there  no  part  of  the  burden  on  our  shoul- 
ders? If  not,  if  we  are  care-free,  left  unhampered 
even  by  our  own  burdens  and  our  own  worries,  then 
we  may  count  ourselves  lucky!  But  are  we  lucky? 
Rather  do  we  know  that  we  are  losing  the  gladdest 
and  most  sacred  privilege  of  life,  in  that  none  of 
our  Lord's  burden  for  the  lost  sheep  rests  on  us. 
The  Laymen's  Missionary  Movement  is  an  effort  to 
bring  this  fact  home  to  the  men  of  the  American 
churches.  Not  that  they  should  give  to  missions — 
respectably  and  perfunctorily — but  that  they  should 
come  up  under  the  burden  of  a  great  work  of  re- 
deeming love,  and  lift  at  it,  for  love  of  their  own 
Master. 


XIII 
The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus 

IT  is  sometimes  said  that  the  church,  long  after 
Jesus'  death,  was  led  to  put  the  doctrine  of 
His  divinity  in  its  creeds,  simply  to  cover  a 
few  verses  in  the  later  New  Testament  that  de- 
manded it  for  Him.  But  on  any  study  of  Jesus' 
character  we  see  how  it  is  not  a  few  proof  texts 
that  lie  behind  this  historic  belief  of  the  church,  but 
the  whole  marvellous  portrait  of  the  man.  You 
may  subtract  this  verse  and  that,  but  so  long  as 
the  story  of  the  gospels  remains,  to  let  us  know  what 
manner  of  man  He  was  who  once  walked  in  Galilee, 
the  world  will  see  the  beauty  of  the  eternal  holiness 
revealed  in  Him,  and  in  Him  will  find,  as  He  said, 
the  very  Way  to  God. 

Under  the  pressure  of  a  dogmatic  denial  of  all 
that  seems  to  bring  the  supernatural  too  near,  many 
critics  of  our  time  feel  the  need  of  denying  the  sin- 
lessness  of  the  man  of  Nazareth,  using  for  the  most 
part  a  single  text  of  the  New  Testament  to  over- 
throw its  incontestable  trend  and  teaching  from  first 

184 


The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus  185 

to  last.  They  say  little  of  this  denial;  they  break 
the  disagreeable  statement  to  us  as  gently  as  they 
can,  speaking  of  the  times  when  Jesus'  will  passed 
through  stages  of  disobedience  to  the  divine  lead- 
ing; but  they  effectually  dethrone  Him  from  the 
position  that  He  has  always  held  in  human  thought 
and  affection,  as  "  the  eternal  King  in  the  King- 
dom of  Truth.''  He  is  no  longer  "  the  stainless 
type  of  human  perfection,"  but  one  who,  however 
pre-eminent  among  us,  must,  as  a  German  writer 
has  said,  "  pay  his  tribute,  as  well  as  we,  to  human 
depravity  and  human  weakness." 

Such  a  view,  that  some  would  thrust  upon  us  so 
lightly,  would  be  a  bitter  loss  to  all  humanity.  And 
what  should  you  and  I  do  without  Him  who  has 
been  to  us  the  very  truth  of  God !  But  we  are  not 
called  upon  seriously  to  consider  so  destructive  a 
criticism,  because  it  is  itself  so  untrue  to  the  only 
historic  picture  that  we  have  of  Jesus.  It  is  not 
exegesis,  it  is  not  criticism,  it  is  wilful  defacement 
and  destruction  at  the  dictatorial  command  of  a 
dogmatic  presupposition. 

This  is  what  the  little  circle  of  men  who  knew 
Jesus  best,  have  to  say  of  Him  in  the  matter,  in 
those  earliest  days  before  creeds  or  doctrines  had 
come  under  debate. 

Peter  said,  "  He  did  no  sin,"  I  Peter,  2 : 22. 

John  said,  "  In  him  is  no  sin,"  I  John,  3  :  5. 


1 86  The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus 

Paul  said,  "  He  knew  no  sin,"  I  Cor.  5:21. 

The  man  who  wrote  the  letter  to  the  Hebrews 
said,  "  He  was  tempted  in  all  points  like  as  we  are, 
yet  without  sin." 

And,  as  for  Jesus  Himself,  he  asked  indignantly, 
"Which  of  you  convicteth  me  of  sin?"  (John  8: 
46),  saying,  "  I  do  always  the  things  that  are  pleas- 
ing to  God  "  (John  8:  29). 

Those  verses  may  serve  as  our  text,  presenting 
as  they  do  the  universal  understanding  and  belief 
of  the  early  church,  and  of  the  church  of  all  time. 

We  turn  now  to  see  how,  in  fact,  this  sinlessness 
of  Jesus  Christ  appears.  What  is  the  character 
from  which  the  vast  structure  of  historic  Christian- 
ity has  arisen,  like  the  lily  from  the  bulb?  What 
secret  of  transcendent  power  and  beauty  was  in  it, 
to  make  it  the  source  of  the  world's  redemption 
from  untruth  and  deceit,  from  sin  and  shame  ? 

We  do  not  want  to  rest  upon  mere  affirmations  of 
His  sinlessness;  we  want  to  see  and  feel  wherein 
is  the  necessity  for  such  an  affirmation.  Consider, 
as  the  chief  ground  of  our  faith,  the  indirect  testi- 
mony of  Jesus'  own  consciousness,  in  the  absence 
of  a  sense  of  guilt,  and  of  any  reaction  or  indirect 
reflection  of  sin  upon  His  own  spirit. 

A  man's  consciousness  must  in  the  long  run  in- 
evitably betray  his  inward  moral  condition,  how- 
ever he  might  be  unwilling  to  confess  it.  Let  us 


The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus  187 

measure  Jesus  in  this  respect  by  standards  that  we 
comprehend, — i.e.,  by  other  good  men.  Not  com- 
mon men,  of  course,  but  by  men  uncommon,  leaders 
in  the  kingdom  of  the  spirit,  who  are  the  nearest 
to  the  equals  of  Jesus  in  moral  elevation.  They 
represent  what  God's  grace  can  do  for  human  nature 
at  its  choicest.  Miracles  of  grace,  some  of  them 
were  called;  they  represent  humanity  with  all  its 
latent  divinity  called  into  expression,  with  the  divine 
spirit  overshadowing  them.  Let  us  put  their  con- 
sciousness by  the  side  of  the  consciousness  of  Jesus, 
and  see  if  there  be  any  essential  difference.  Differ- 
ence in  degree  of  purity  of  life,  we  know  there 
was;  but  look  to  see  if  there  is  any  deeper  differ- 
ence, so  radical  and  characteristic  as  to  leave  Him 
in  a  majestic  solitariness. 

It  is  with  strange  unanimity  that  the  spiritual 
leaders  of  mankind  confess,  without  reserve,  in- 
roads of  evil  upon  their  soul — their  ever-attending 
consciousness  of  sin.  Not  necessarily  like  David, 
bitterly  remorseful  for  heavy  crimes  against  both 
God  and  man,  but  like  the  pure  and  lofty  Isaiah, 
who  at  the  very  sight  of  the  King  cried  out,  "  I  am 
undone!  for  I  am  a  man  of  unclean  lips."  A  true 
man  comes  into  near  sight  of  the  ineffable  holiness 
of  God  to  feel — what?  The  satisfying  purity  of 
his  own  spirit?  Never  this!  But  to  see  in  himself, 
in  that  searching  light  of  truth  and  love,  the  irre- 


1 88  The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus 

trievable  stains  that  are  his  shame.  By  God's  mercy 
he  may  be  cleansed,  but  clean  with  the  eternal,  un- 
spotted cleanliness  of  God  he  cannot  be.  Always 
he  will  be  the  man  once  unworthy — once  forgiven 
— forever  the  trophy  of  God's  compassion,  rescued 
from  the  grip  of  sin.  And  even  though  he  comes 
to  be  partaker  of  the  divine  nature,  will  he  not 
always  be,  above  all,  a  son  redeemed  with  a  great 
price,  with  the  gratitude  and  humility  of  that  great 
deliverance  upon  his  spirit  ? 

In  any  case  it  is  certain  that  this  sense  of  need 
and  ill-desert  is  an  inevitable  mark  of  the  man  of 
spiritual  sense  and  feeling  here  on  earth;  and  men 
instinctively  realize  that  he  in  whom  this  sense  is 
lacking,  lacks  the  very  most  essential  quality  of  a 
spiritual  leader  for  his  race.  His  self-confidence 
is  his  condemnation.  There  have  been  men  who 
felt  that  they  could  face  God  with  confident  self- 
possession,  because  of  their  virtues;  and  just  so  far 
forth  their  fellows  have  shrunk  away  from  them 
as  abnormal — not  more,  but  less  than  human,  lack- 
ing in  self-knowledge.  Rousseau  made  no  secret  of 
his  moral  turpitude.  But  he,  speaking  of  his  reject- 
ing with  contempt  God's  gift  of  His  Son,  said : 
"  My  virtues  are  sufficient  to  expiate  my  crimes, 
and  on  these  I  will  depend  as  my  sole  mediators 
before  God."  But  the  world  has  not  seen  in  this 
the  evidence  of  superior,  but  of  inferior,  moral 


The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus  189 

stature, — so  proper  to  a  true  man  is  his  sense  of 
limitation  and  shortcoming,  as  he  faces  God. 

And  yet,  so  far  as  we  can  see  from  all  the  rec- 
ords, Jesus  stood  as  uncondemned  and  confident  be- 
fore God  as  though  He  were  God  Himself;  and 
none  is  repelled  by  His  audacity,  or  counts  it  moral 
hardihood  on  His  part. 

There  was  a  man,  one  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago,  Fletcher  of  Madeley,  a  companion  of  the  Wes- 
leys,  who,  almost  alone  in  modern  times,  gained 
from  his  fellows  the  reputation  of  "  almost  seraphic 
holiness."  It  has  been  said  that  never  perhaps  since 
the  rise  of  Christianity  has  the  mind  which  was 
in  Christ  been  more  faithfully  copied  than  it  was 
in  the  Vicar  of  Madeley.  His  sanctity  of  life  was 
without  perceptible  spot  or  flaw.  Indeed,  one  of 
the  most  notable  critics  of  Christianity  in  our  last 
generation  has  claimed  that  his  character  was  more 
perfect  than  that  of  Jesus.  We  might  well  expect 
to  find  in  him  a  close  approach  to  the  experience 
of  Jesus  in  his  unruffled  consciousness  of  the  divine 
approval — in  a  conscience  void  of  offence.  Yet 
never  man  heard  Jesus  calling  Himself,  as  did 
Fletcher,  "  a  weary  perplexed  sinner,  in  the  dust  of 
self-despair;  a  man  utterly  undone;  wanting  in  love, 
excelling  in  pride."  We  do  not  even  need  to  inquire 
how  far  this  estimate  of  himself  was  justified — 
we  only  have  to  note  its  presence,  so  alien  to  any- 


190  The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus 

thing  that  can  be  detected  in  the  consciousness  of 
Jesus,  or  that  can  be  wrenched  by  inference  from 
his  sayings. 

Here  is  that  shining  light  of  a  dark  age,  Thomas 
a  Kempis,  showing  us  what  was  in  his  soul,  "  What 
have  I  done,  O  Lord,  that  thou  shouldst  bestow  any 
heavenly  comfort  upon  me?  I  have  always  been 
prone  to  sin  and  slow  to  amendment.  This  is  true 
and  I  cannot  deny  it.  If  I  should  say  otherwise, 
thou  wouldst  stand  against  me  and  there  would  be 
none  to  defend  me.  I  have  sinned.  O  Lord,  have 
mercy  upon  me,  pardon  me !  "  In  what  another 
world  this  man  moved  from  Him  who  said  that  He 
did  always  the  things  that  please  God. 

You  all  know  how  we  might  continue  indefinitely 
this  inquiry.  But  it  is  not  necessary.  Nowhere  in 
the  world's  history  do  we  come  on  one  like  Jesus, 
uncondemned  of  sin,  even  in  His  inmost  soul.  Not 
callous,  nor  conscienceless!  for  He  belonged  to  the 
race  that  of  all  human  races  has  had  the  profound- 
est  consciousness  of  moral  evil,  and  of  the  awful 
holiness  of  Jehovah.  He  was  a  Hebrew  of  the  He- 
brews. Yet  he  was  a  man  who  never  made  con- 
fession of  a  fault,  who  never  asked  forgiveness  for 
a  sin,  who  never  sought  redeemer  or  mediator  to 
lean  upon;  who  never  showed  sign  of  contrition  or 
penitence  or  shame ;  who  never  so  much  as  classified 
Himself  in  these  regards  with  men,  His  brothers; 


The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus  191 

but  who  thought  and  spoke  and  acted,  through  life 
and  in  death,  as  one  as  infinitely  removed  from  the 
universal  experience  of  His  brethren  in  this  respect 
as  though  He  also  shared  the  unapproachable  glory 
of  God's  holiness. 

And  in  all  this  He  was  as  miraculous  an  excep- 
tion to  the  uniformity  of  natural  order,  as  a  man 
would  be  with  a  higher  structure  than  the  vertebrate. 
If  we  say  we  have  no  sin,  we  deceive  ourselves  and 
the  truth  is  not  in  us.  Here  is  one,  living  a  truly 
human  life,  who  not  only  says  it,  but  who  acts  upon 
it,  taking  upon  himself  honors  and  prerogatives  that 
go  only  with  the  spotlessness  like  God's — claiming 
to  forgive  sin,  and  to  set  Himself  as  the  moral 
norm  for  human  life.  What  moral  obtuseness  and 
what  hopeless  depth  of  pride  that  means,  if  He 
spoke  as  we  should  have  spoken  in  such  a  claim. 

If  that  unmistakable  assumption  of  purity  were 
not  genuine,  what  indignation  it  should  rouse  in 
men,  that  such  a  man  should  claim  to  be  a  moral 
leader.  Humility  is  better  than  vast  pretensions, 
even  in  a  spiritual  giant.  But  has  the  world  felt 
this  indignant  wrath  with  Jesus  for  His  pride  ?  No ! 
it  has  only  seen  in  it  a  sweet  reasonableness.  Be- 
cause— and  this  leads  us  a  step  further — because, 
even  after  any  hostile  sifting  of  the  records,  He 
stands  as  one  having  the  virtues  of  a  sinless  man. 
This  is  no  colorless  absence  of  sin,  or  absence  of 


192  The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus 

its  consciousness,  but  the  presence  of  a  more  than 
human  sweetness  and  beauty.  It  is  a  character  that 
has  not  angered  the  world  at  Him  for  an  enormous 
vanity,  but  that  has  held  the  world's  affection  by 
its  loveliness.  He  has  won  the  love  of  the  vilest 
and  the  reverence  of  the  purest. 

It  is  not  exaggerating,  is  it,  to  say  that  we  see 
in  Him  as  in  a  complete  white  light  the  virtues  that, 
in  those  about  us  whom  we  admire,  shine  in  the 
broken  colors  of  the  spectrum — the  strength  and 
gentleness,  the  dignity  and  meekness,  the  transparent 
simplicity,  and  the  profound  depths  beyond  human 
knowing?  We  love  Him  for  His  unsullied  purity 
and  His  divine  compassion  for  the  impure  and  out- 
cast; for  His  inflexible  faithfulness  to  duty  and 
His  submission  to  His  Father's  will;  for  His  stern 
hostility  to  wrong  and  oppression,  and  His  pity  for 
the  distresses  of  the  world;  for  His  own  quiet  pa- 
tience under  malice  and  abuse,  and  for  His  superb 
courage  in  the  face  of  threatening  torture  and  death; 
for  His  self-forgetfulness,  and  more  than  all  for 
the  fervent,  palpitating  love  that  led  Him  all  His 
life  and  made  Him  glad  to  lay  it  down  at  last  for 
others. 

And  not  for  these  things  taken  singly  or  unre- 
lated, but  for  the  more  than  human  sweetness  and 
beauty  with  which  they  were  mixed  up  in  Him,  so 
that  we  feel  no  incongruity  in  regarding  Him  as 


The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus  193 

the  very  revelation  of  the  Father:  so  that  when 
we  see  in  lives  about  us  the  choicest  qualities  that 
can  grow  in  a  human  soul,  we  recognize  without 
wonder  that  they  have  come  from  Him. 

This  is  the  matchless  figure  that  we  have  left  to 
us,  even  after  we  have  done  our  best  to  eliminate  the 
supernatural  from  the  story  of  the  founder  of  Chris- 
tianity. Is  it  worth  while  seeking  to  eliminate  it? 

If  we  believe  that  in  Him  our  Father  was  unfold- 
ing Himself  to  man,  then  His  appearance  and  char- 
acter, with  all  the  history  that  He  has  made,  become 
natural,  reasonable,  so  to  speak  non-marvellous. 
The  fact  that  it  was  supernatural  in  origin  makes 
it  natural  and  easy  to  believe  and  understand.  It 
affords  the  only  natural  and  orderly  explanation. 
The  sinless  man  stands  out  majestically  alone  from 
all  the  members  of  the  human  race;  he  breaks  the 
uniform  sway  of  the  natural  order,  say  what  we 
will;  he  is  the  sublime  exception  to  the  collective 
experience  of  humanity.  Why  this  inexplicable 
break,  as  of  a  new  creation?  Evolution  has  no 
more  to  say  of  it  than  of  any  other  beginning — of 
matter,  of  life,  of  mind — all  human  theories  are 
silent:  and  where  human  theories  are  helpless  to 
explain,  there  we  see  the  natural  explanation  in  the 
appearance  among  us  of  the  Holy  One  of  God. 

There  are  two  inquiries  in  this  connection  that 
are  of  pressing  interest,  because  the  subject  of  cur- 


194  The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus 

rent  discussion.  Does  this  unique  sinlessness  of 
Jesus,  so  profoundly  unlike  the  conditions  that  we 
sinners  know,  does  this  put  Him  further  from  us, 
removing  Him  from  our  sympathy?  Would  He 
have  been  nearer  to  us  had  He,  too,  been  overcome 
of  evil?  The  answer  unmistakably  is,  No!  We 
have  companions  and  friends  enough  who  are  weak, 
who  have  been  themselves  defeated,  and  who  cannot 
wholly  bid  us  look  up  in  time  of  moral  danger.  It 
is  good  to  have,  not  only  a  Saviour,  but  a  Friend, 
a  Companion,  who  can  perfectly  hold  our  trust  and 
lead  us  through  any  allurements  of  this  earth.  He 
is  bound  to  us  as  a  brother  and  sympathizer,  not 
because  He  also  proved  unworthy  under  trial,  but 
because  He  suffered,  being  tempted  in  all  points  like 
as  we  are,  yet  without  sin.  We  have  not  stood  that 
test;  we  cannot  see  how  we,  being  still  ourselves, 
should  be  able  to  stand  it.  But  this  does  not  re- 
move Him  from  us,  any  more  than  it  removes  our 
Heavenly  Father  from  us  because  His  love  is  per- 
fect, and  not  frail  like  ours.  Only  the  perfect  man 
can  perfectly  command  our  hearts. 

And  then,  further,  look  intently  far  on  into  the 
future.  Has  this  sinlessness  of  Jesus,  the  great 
Elder  Brother  of  the  race,  any  promise  or  prophecy 
of  what  shall  be  for  us?  Neither  science  nor  philos- 
ophy has  any  word  to  help  us  here, — we  rest  alto- 
gether and  alone  upon  faith  in  the  revelation  of 


The  Sinlessness  of  Jesus  195 

the  New  Testament.  But  in  that  revelation  we  have 
the  picture  of  Jesus  as  the  first-born  among  many 
brethren, — as  the  One  who  should  lead  many  sons 
into  glory. 

Well  we  know  by  experience  that  no  moral  vic- 
tory is  won  save  through  sore  travail — our  own  or 
another's.  And  what  may  lie  before  us  of  long 
discipline,  or  of  wondrous  inconceivable  energy  in 
our  spirits  of  the  transforming  love  of  God,  we 
cannot  guess.  Surely  vast  changes  and  achieve- 
ments lie  in  the  unknown  future,  dwarfing  our  past 
into  a  hand's  breadth;  and  unthinkable  joys  of  vic- 
tory and  gladness  are  to  be  ours,  if  we  are  Chris- 
tians, before  His  work  in  us  is  done. 

But  when  the  long  day's  work  and  discipline  are 
over,  when  our  Father's  image  in  His  children  is 
complete,  when  our  Lord  sees  in  us  of  the  travail 
of  His  soul  and  is  satisfied,  even  then,  when  the 
disciple  shall  be  "  as  his  Lord,"  still  He  will  be  our 
Lord.  Still  will  remain  the  infinite  and  eternal  dis- 
tinction between  Redeemer  and  redeemed,  that  shall 
be  our  joy  and  praise  forever.  Though  we  are  sons, 
yet  shall  we  not  repeat  the  experience  of  the  Eternal 
Son;  but  even  in  that  hour  of  final  consummation 
the  song  of  the  whole  family  of  creation  shall  still 
be,  "  Unto  him  that  sitteth  on  the  throne,  and  unto 
the  Lamb,  be  the  blessing  and  the  honor  and  the 
glory  and  the  dominion,  forever  and  ever." 


XIV 
A  Life  Purpose 

"  One  thing  I  do,  .  .  .  I  press  on." — PHIL.  3:13,14, 

THE  human  will  has  infinite  varieties,  as  we 
see  it  governing  the  lives  of  men  about  us ; 
but  there  are  two  strongly  contrasted  types, 
at  either  end  of  the  scale.     One  crumples  up  like 
paper  at  the  first  shock  of  serious  resistance,  the 
other   stiffens   itself   like   iron   under  assault,   and 
holds  on  indomitably  until  the  end,  as  if  unable  to 
let  go. 

Dr.  Grenfell  tells  of  a  little  fore-and-aft  fishing 
schooner,  of  less  than  a  hundred  tons,  that  sailed 
from  Cadiz,  Spain,  for  a  mid-winter  passage  across 
the  North  Atlantic.  Her  crew  were  all  Newfound- 
land fishermen,  of  the  toughest,  hardiest  sailor  stock 
in  the  world,  and  her  captain  was  of  the  true  Viking 
breed,  fearing  nothing  that  the  sea  could  do.  Three 
weeks  out,  however,  one  black  night,  they  were 
struck  by  a  waterspout  and  left  in  a  moment  a 
helpless  wreck,  with  everything  forward  swept 
clean;  mast  and  bowsprit  and  bulwarks,  boats  and 

196 


A  Life  Purpose  197 

deck-houses,  all  were  gone,  and  the  deck  itself  was 
gaping  open  like  a  sieve.  The  winter  gales  were 
at  their  height,  and  the  crew,  constantly  wet 
through,  unable  to  heat  a  morsel  of  food  or  drink, 
were  soon  chilled  to  the  bone  and  exhausted  by  ex- 
posure. Their  only  hope  was  in  keeping  the  wreck 
afloat  a  few  hours  or  days  by  pumping,  till  they 
could  be  taken  off  by  some  passing  vessel. 

Day  after  day  passed,  the  captain  using  every 
conceivable  argument  to  keep  them  at  the  pumps, 
though  half  dead  with  misery.  Days  grew  into 
weeks,  until  two  weeks  had  gone,  and  nature  could 
stand  no  more;  the  men  begged  to  stop  the  useless 
struggle,  that  they  might  all  go  down  together. 
But  the  captain  would  not  yield.  Another  day  and 
another  he  held  them  to  the  fight,  day  and  night, 
even  though  they  fell  down  from  sheer  weakness 
at  their  places  by  the  handles.  At  last  they  sighted 
a  steamer.  It  passed  them  by.  Then  a  second.  It 
also  failed  to  answer  their  signals.  Still  he  would 
not  yield,  though  at  the  most  their  united  strength 
could  keep  the  sinking  craft  afloat  but  a  few  hours 
more,  not  even  through  the  coming  night.  Then  a 
third  vessel  was  sighted  just  as  night  was  closing  in, 
and  they  lit  a  huge  flare  upon  the  deck,  setting  fire 
to  the  vessel,  as  their  last  chance  to  attract  at- 
tention. 

She  was  a  towering  Hamburg  liner.     She  bore 


198  A  Life  Purpose 

down  upon  them  through  the  furious  seas,  and 
hailed  them  to  know  if  they  could  hold  on  till  morn- 
ing. No!  they  were  sinking  even  then!  Then  a 
different  phase  of  the  same  indomitable  will  declared 
itself.  The  life-saving  crew  on  the  steamer  were 
soon  in  their  places,  and  the  steel  life-boat  was 
lowered;  but  before  it  could  touch  the  water,  a 
heavy  sea  caught  it  and  crushed  it  like  an  egg-shell 
against  the  steamer's  side.  Manoeuvring  into  posi- 
tion again,  a  wooden  life-boat  was  this  time  low- 
ered, with  her  crew  in  it;  but  before  they  could 
dear  the  vessel's  side  this,  too,  was  smashed  to 
kindling-wood  and  the  men  barely  rescued.  Was 
that  the  end? 

Back  again  the  huge  steamer  swung  into  posi- 
tion. Again  the  men,  undaunted,  took  their  places, 
this  time  in  a  light,  collapsible  boat,  that  was 
dropped  from  the  davits  on  the  run.  And  in  the 
end,  every  one  of  the  sinking  crew  was  rescued, 
only  a  few  moments  before  their  schooner  sank. 
And  the  iron  will,  that  would  not  yield  so  long  as 
life  held,  had  saved  against  hopeless  odds  the  whole 
ship's  company. 

I  dwell  so  long  upon  this  commonplace  incident 
of  the  sea,  because  it  fairly  presents  the  type  of 
resolution  I  wish  to  urge  upon  you.  To  that  rugged 
sea-captain,  brought  up  from  earliest  boyhood  to 
fight  an  unending  fight  against  the  forces  of  the 


A  Life  Purpose  199 

cruel  sea,  amid  fog  and  ice  and  bitter  gales  and 
endless  hardships  and  privations,  the  determination 
not  to  yield  to  danger  so  long  as  life  held  had  be- 
come like  an  instinct  of  the  soul.  He  must  hold 
on,  even  when  odds  seemed  hopeless.  He  could  not 
be  daunted  nor  shaken  in  his  purpose.  You  may  see 
the  same  characteristic  in  almost  all  trained  life- 
savers,  as  with  veteran  firemen,  who  seem  incapable 
of  weighing  danger  in  the  face  of  that  irresistible 
bent  and  determination  of  the  will  to  rescue  the 
men  and  women  hemmed  in  by  the  flames.  Their 
whole  being  is  gathered  up  and  concentrated  in  a 
purpose  and  ambition  that  becomes  fundamental, 
instinctive,  so  that  it  can  neither  be  insidiously 
weakened  nor  suddenly  overthrown.  All  the  other 
natural  cravings  of  their  life  are  so  subordinated 
to  it  that,  without  reasoning  or  reflection  on  their 
part,  it  towers  over  them  supreme. 

Many  of  us  will  soon  be  going  out  into  the  world 
to  meet  we  know  not  what  of  the  wrench  and  strain 
of  character  that  come  with  strenuous  years.  Only 
one  thing  can  save  us  from  comparative  failure  and 
disappointment — that  we  should  have  as  the  deep, 
underlying  motive  of  life,  its  over- ruling,  all-com- 
prehending determination,  the  assertion  of  the  will, 
"  One  thing  I  do;  I  press  on." 

Like  the  sailor's  resistance  to  the  destroying  sea, 
a  resistance  instinctive,  unconscious,  unquenchable, 


2OO  A  Life  Purpose 

so  must  be  our  declaration  of  resistance  to  all  the 
weakening,  disintegrating,  corrupting  influences  of 
life.  We  know,  every  one  of  us,  by  experience  of 
the  past,  that  our  resolution  will  be  assailed,  as  in 
a  mortal  combat;  the  only  thing  we  do  not  know 
is  the  precise  angle  from  which  the  coming  assaults 
will  be  delivered;  That,  we  cannot  foresee.  The 
mere  lapse  of  years,  the  growing  cares  of  life,  in- 
volve wholly  unsuspected  changes  in  the  enemy. 

One,  for  instance,  who  has  never  known  any- 
thing but  careless  health,  cannot  dream  of  the  slow, 
sullen  siege  of  the  spirit's  citadel  that  comes  with 
the  temptation  and  bewilderment  of  ever-hamper- 
ing weakness.  He  who  has  manfully  borne  the 
pressure  of  irritating  poverty  has  no  sympathetic 
insight  into  the  dogged,  iron  self-restraint  that  will 
be  needed  for  him  to  meet  unseduced  the  perilous 
luxury  of  wealth.  Some  of  us  whose  Christian 
faith  is  yet  simple  and  unafraid  may  have  to  walk 
the  way  so  many  have  trodden,  where  one  must 
keep  faith  with  God,  even  in  anxious  distress  of 
doubt.  We  do  not  know,  even  the  oldest  of  us, 
what  future  days  may  whisper  to  us  of  treason  to 
our  courage.  The  coward  lurks  in  most  of  us,  not 
far  from  the  brave  man.  Sometimes  he  does  not 
declare  himself  until  the  day  is  almost  done.  The 
temptation  to  let  go,  to  turn  back,  to  drop  out  of 
the  race,  will  not  cease  until  the  goal  is  actually 


A  Life  Purpose  201 

reached.  Oh!  for  a  purpose  of  steel,  tested  and 
tempered  through  long  years,  that  cries  out,  whether 
in  strength  or  weakness,  in  light  or  in  the  dark,  "  I 
press  on." 

We  shall  almost  inevitably  be  brought  to  a  stand, 
at  times;  we  shall  be  baffled,  and  discouraged,  and 
hard  beset.  Oh,  for  a  life  purpose  that  will  be  like 
rock  under  our  feet  when  we  seem  to  be  sinking  in 
the  quicksands!  How  many  college-trained  men, 
do  you  suppose  there  are,  this  very  month,  who 
are  letting  go  of  their  ideals,  because  the  call  of 
big  business,  or  of  political  pull,  or  municipal  cor- 
ruption, is  proving  stronger  than  their  will,  and 
paralyzing  their  nobler  selves?  The  enemies  were 
too  many  for  them — they  have  given  up  the  fight. 
They  are  no  more  of  those  who  press  on. 

We  need  not  only  to  have  such  an  overmastering 
determination  as  this,  but  we  need  to  know  that  we 
have  it,  to  admit  it  to  ourselves  and  others,  to  affirm 
it  and  proudly  rest  upon  it.  It  is  of  no  use  to  hold 
it  in  a  tentative  way,  half  furtively,  unconfessed, 
as  though  we  were  secretly  ashamed  of  what  is  best 
in  us.  We  need  to  magnify  and  honor  it  in  every 
possible  way,  so  that  it  may  stand  compelling  in  the 
forefront  of  our  -consciousness.  We  may  even 
need  to  make  a  fight  for  it,  as  for  something  of 
which  we  will  not  consent  to  be  robbed  under  any 
circumstances  conceivable.  Out  of  any  entangle- 


2O2  A  Life  Purpose 

ment,  or  defeat,  or  wreck  of  things,  we  must  still 
arise  unconquered,  saying,  "  I  press  on." 

Sir  Robertson  Nicoll  tells  of  a  poor  girl,  rescued 
from  the  wolves  of  Liverpool,  dying  at  seventeen, 
pitifully  beset  by  sad  memories  and  fears.  In  her 
last  moments,  half  conscious,  fully  conscious  only 
of  her  desperate  determination,  she  rose  up  in  bed 
and  lifting  one  arm  as  if  to  call  God  to  witness, 
exclaimed,  "  I  will  fight  for  my  soul,  through  hosts 
and  hosts  and  hosts."  With  such  a  mortal  earnest- 
ness and  urgency  must  we  cling  to  this  ambition,  if 
it  is  to  go  with  us  through  all  the  deadly  onsets  of 
the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil. 

But  let  us  look  more  closely  at  what  it  is  and 
what  it  involves.  We  feel  without  argument  that 
it  means  the  gathering  up  of  what  is  best  in  us, 
to  go  onward  when  the  whole  world  drags  at  our 
feet,  to  keep  up  a  soldier's  determination  when  men 
all  about  us  are  out  for  plunder.  But  just  what  is 
this  supreme,  life-long  committal  of  the  will? 

Paul  leaves  us  in  no  doubt.  He  does  not  do  what 
so  many  teachers  do  in  our  day,  indulge  in  vague 
generalities  or  high-sounding  ethical  sentiments. 
"  One  thing  I  do,"  he  said,  "  I  press  on  toward  the 
goal."  There  was  an  end  before  him,  clear,  mag- 
nificent, compelling.  What  was  it?  It  was  to  an- 
swer to  God's  high  calling.  It  was  to  achieve  what 
Jesus  Christ  had  made  possible  for  him — to  lay  hold 


A  Life  Purpose  203 

on  that  for  which  he  had  been  laid  hold  of  by  his 
Lord.  He  approved  that  as  the  best  thing  in  life. 
He  longed  for  it;  he  chose  it  with  all  his  heart; 
he  would  press  on  toward  it  forever.  The  clear 
battle-call  that  had  come  to  him  through  Christ 
Jesus  was  the  call  to  which  every  fibre  of  his  being 
answered. 

Does  this  seem  to  any  of  you  to  be  narrowing 
unduly  the  resolution  to  press  on,  which  every  one 
of  us  should  share?  Does  it  seem  to  narrow  to  a 
distinctly  religious  and  sharply  Christian  complexion 
a  purpose  which  should  be  so  broad  and  inclusive 
that  all  honorable  men  could  share  in  it?  It  does 
so  narrow  it,  but  for  a  good  reason.  It  is  to  secure 
power  and  intensity! 

If  you  take  a  magnifying-glass  and  hold  it  in  the 
sun,  you  can  gather  up  the  sun's  rays  into  a  broad 
patch  of  light,  of  a  greater  intensity  than  the  ordi- 
nary sunshine.  This  is  what  any  of  the  great  truths 
regarding  God  and  the  soul  will  do  for  the  moral 
life,  if  brought  to  bear  upon  the  spirit.  They  will 
inspire  and  lighten  it.  Any  approach  to  God's  good 
tidings  will  accomplish  this  illumination  for  the  hu- 
man soul.  But  if  you  hold  that  magnifying-glass 
away,  at  the  proper  angle,  in  just  one  position,  you 
iocus  the  sunlight  in  a  burning  point,  of  a  heat  and 
brilliancy  otherwise  unattainable.  And  just  so,  as 
an  actual  matter  of  experience,  the  intensest 


204  A  Life  Purpose 

energy  of  a  divine  warmth  and  power  for  the 
human  will  is  found  at  the  point  where  the 
light  of  God's  truth  is  focused  in  the  appeal  of 
Jesus  Christ  to  men.  One  may  argue  about  it  as 
he  chooses,  but  the  fact  is  incontestable.  It  is  in 
a  personal  association  with  Jesus  Christ  that  this 
high  determination  of  the  human  will  burns  at  its 
hottest.  The  will  to  press  on  toward  God's  best 
is  immeasurably  re-enforced  by  this  wonderful  re- 
lationship between  a  man  and  Him  who  came  to  be 
man's  Saviour.  If  you  honestly  want  power  and 
intensity  for  such  a  life-long  choice  as  this,  you 
will  seek  for  it,  where  numberless  tempted  men  have 
found  it,  in  this  personal  discipleship.  It  is  not 
theory,  or  doctrine,  or  theology,  that  will  carry  you 
there,  but  the  hard  logic  of  fact — the  fact  that  there, 
and  there  only,  does  your  weak  will  find  its  supreme 
and  sufficient  inspiration. 

You  remember  that  gallant  fighter,  Rear-Admiral 
Philip— Captain  "Jack"  Philip  of  the  "Texas." 
In  his  New  Testament  was  pasted  a  slip  with  these 
words :  "  Put  any  burden  upon  me,  only  sustain  me. 
Send  me  anywhere,  only  go  with  me.  Sever  any 
tie  but  this  tie  which  binds  me  to  thy  service  and 
thy  heart."  "Go  with  me!"  Even  the  great  sacri- 
fices, the  costly  decisions,  a  man  can  quietly  make 
in  the  strength  of  that  personal  fellowship.  The 
goal  of  achieving  God's  thought  for  your  life  be- 


A  Life  Purpose  205 

comes  possible  as  that  thought  is  interpreted  and 
commended  to  you  day  by  day  through  the  Master, 
and  as  His  hold  upon  you  lifts  you  up. 

It  is  very  easy  to  use  brave  words  about  life-long 
choices  and  an  indomitable  will.  It  is  very  easy 
to  be  confident  in  the  pulpit,  and  to  offer  smooth 
prophecies  to  those  who  cannot  answer  back.  One 
would  be  afraid  and  ashamed  to  make  such  a  show 
of  confidence,  were  it  not  for  certain  peculiar  quali- 
ties about  this  particular  determination,  to  press  on 
toward  the  goal.  Let  us  inquire  what  there  is  about 
this  particular  promise  and  engagement  of  the  soul 
that  roots  it  in  a  life,  as  the  lighthouse  shaft  is 
rooted  in  the  living  rock;  that  makes  it  utterly  dif- 
ferent from  many  another  life  ambition,  such  as  to 
become  a  great  artist,  to  attain  a  fortune,  or  to 
achieve  a  commanding  place  in  the  councils  of  the 
nation. 

"One  thing  I  do;  I  press  on  toward  the  goal." 
This  affirmation  springs  from  the  divine  will,  it  is 
nourished  by  the  divine  love,  and  it  issues  in  the 
divine  glory.  To  make  it  and  to  hold  it,  is  to  have 
been  lifted  up  by  the  mercy  of  God !  It  is  not  at 
all  a  dramatic  or  spectacular  resolve,  to  be  adver- 
tised to  the  world,  like  the  purpose  to  fly  across  the 
Alps  or  the  English  Channel.  It  is  not  the  glorious 
manifesto  of  a  hero,  or  a  conqueror,  or  a  saint.  It 
is  the  determination  of  an  ordinary  tempted,  failing 


206  A  Life  Purpose 

man,  like  ourselves,  to  push  on  in  spite  of  fears,  to 
weather  the  storm,  to  make  the  harbor.  Yet 
through  and  through  it  is  bound  up  with  that  which 
is  divinely  glorious  and  triumphantly  overcoming. 

First  of  all,  though  it  is  so  commonplace,  so 
suited  to  the  common  man  and  so  well  within  his 
power,  its  source  is  in  the  deep  eternal  springs  of 
the  divine  will.  We  are  in  the  merciful  grasp  of  our 
Father  in  Heaven  if  we  have  this  purpose.  We 
may  never  have  been  so  conscious  of  our  weakness 
or  our  danger;  but  if  this  thought  is  in  our  heart, 
to  press  on  toward  that  goal,  God  is  dealing  with 
us.  Just  as  with  Paul  originally,  that  ambition 
grows  up  out  of  the  visiting  grace  of  the  Almighty. 
It  is  He  that  worketh  in  us  to  will  and  to  do  of 
His  good  pleasure.  To  set  for  ourselves  that  goal 
is  to  have  met  with  the  redeeming  power  of  Him 
who  has  made  us  for  Himself.  It  may  not  seem 
so  very  great  or  so  very  gracious,  here  at 
its  humble  beginnings,  when  the  struggle  is  all 
about  us  and  the  entanglements  and  redoubts  lie 
all  before  us.  But  looked  back  upon  across  the 
life-time  of  years,  from  the  clear,  calm  morning  of 
victory  and  joy,  shall  we  not  see  how  the  power  and 
guidance  of  God  were  in  it,  and  how  it  was  a  pur- 
pose all  divine? 

Again,  it  is  sustained  and  nourished  by  the  divine 
love.  It  could  hardly  last  out  a  year  or  a  month 


A  Life  Purpose  207 

were  it  not  confirmed  and  renewed  by  God's  gentle- 
ness and  forgiveness.  It  is  a  wonderful  ambition 
this,  which  only  lives  by  virtue  of  God's  love.  Were 
not  His  patience  and  long-suffering  inexhaustible, 
how  long  do  you  think  our  resolution  would  stand 
the  strain  of  failure,  indefinitely  repeated?  He  will 
gather  up  our  energies  anew,  though  we  should 
stumble  and  fall  prostrate  again  and  again  and 
again. 

This  only  seems  strange  to  us  because  we  are  so 
unforgiving,  so  unlike  God.  We  need  to  be  re- 
minded repeatedly  that  even  those  servants  of  God 
who  are  successfully  working  for  lost  men  and 
women,  are  of  an  extraordinary,  and  to  us  most 
unnatural,  patience  and  hopefulness  for  those  they 
seek  to  save.  They  remind  us  how  God  wins  with 
us,  and  how  He  carries  our  faltering  will,  on  and 
on,  through  years  and  years,  to  a  steadfast  and 
ultimately  conclusive  choice.  But  it  is  divine 
love  that  wins  the  battle,  and  not  our  splendid 
fidelity. 

Here,  for  instance,  we  read  of  a  crook  and  horse- 
thief,  who  wandered  into  the  Water  Street  Mission 
and  professed  to  be  converted.  Weeks  after  he  had 
come  out  as  a  convert  at  the  mission  and  had  been 
wholly  trusted  by  the  workers,  he  again  stole  a 
horse  and  was  locked  up  in  Westchester  Jail.  They 
would  be  pretty  angry  and  disgusted  at  the  mission, 


208  A  Life  Purpose 

would  they  not !  And  yet  the  day  that  man's  sen- 
tence expired,  the  jailer  handed  him  a  new  suit  of 
clothes  from  John  Wyburn,  the  superintendent  of 
the  mission,  and  a  note  saying  "  God  bless  you; 
when  you  get  back  to  the  city  look  us  up."  And 
the  broken-spirited  man  looked  them  up,  and  to-day 
stands  faithful. 

Here  is  the  man  McBride  who  for  years  has  held 
a  Sunday  morning  service  in  Harrison  Street  Jail, 
Chicago,  in  spite  of  unimaginable  discouragements. 
One  morning  there  was  a  sulky  young  fellow  in 
one  of  the  cells,  to  whom  McBride,  with  a  cordial 
smile,  handed  a  hymn-book.  The  man  spit  upon 
him,  like  a  snarling  beast.  He  went  back  to  him 
again,  presently,  and  again  the  man  spit  at  him 
through  the  bars.  The  third  time  the  man  simply 
turned  his  back.  But  the  next  morning  the  jailer 
telephoned  McBride  that  the  young  man  was  all 
broken  up  and  was  crying  for  the  preacher.  Mc- 
Bride went  to  him,  and  together  they  knelt  down 
among  the  crowd  of  policemen  and  lawyers  and 
bondsmen,  while  he  sobbed  out  his  apology  and  his 
confession.  He  confessed  that  morning  in  court 
to  a  grave  forgery  committed  in  another  State,  and 
went  back  there  willingly  to  a  long  prison  sentence. 
But  there  came  back  presently  the  word  that  he 
was  the  leader  of  a  prison  Bible-class,  and  later 
McBride  received  the  word  of  his  triumphant  death, 


A  Life  Purpose  209 

together  with  a  message  from  him  of  gratitude  and 
love  and  hope. 

That  helps  us  to  imagine  God.  That  is  the  way 
in  which  our  Father  wins  with  us,  leading  us  on, 
when  our  unaided  purpose  would  have  broken  down. 
This  resolution  of  ours  is  rooted  in  His  love — it 
draws  its  life  from  His  continual  forgiveness.  The 
whole  energy  and  power  of  the  eternal  gospel  are 
behind  our  poor  profession.  And  so  the  poorest 
of  us  may  go  forward  hopefully. 

And  last  of  all,  it  issues  in  the  divine  glory.  It  is 
commonplace  enough  now,  with  the  humiliation  of 
our  weakness  through  and  through  it.  Our  prayer 
now  is, 

"  Keep  me  from  turning  back  ! 
My  hand  is  on  the  plough,  my  faltering  hand; 
But  all  in  front  of  me  is  unfilled  land, 
The  wilderness  and  solitary  place, 
The  lonely  desert  and  its  interspace. 
What  harvest  have  I  ?    But  this  paltry  grain , 
These  dwindling  husks,  a  handful  of  dry  corn, 
These  poor  lean  stalks.     My  courage  is  outworn, 
Keep  me  from  turning  back. 
The  handles  of  my  plough  with  tears  are  wet, 
The  shares  with  rust  are  spoiled — and  yet — and  yet — 
My  God!  My  God!  Keep  me  from  turning  back."* 

He  keeps  us  from  turning  back !  We  look  at  our 
Helper  in  Jesus  Christ,  and  we  know  that  He  will 

*  From  the  "British  Weekly." 


2io  A  Life  Purpose 

keep  us.  He  bids  us  even  now  rejoice  in  hope  of 
the  glory  of  God.  We  cannot  see  it  across  the 
impenetrable  future,  any  more  than  Columbus  could 
see  across  the  misty  ocean  as  he  pressed  forward. 
But  we  press  on!  God  sees  it  for  us,  and  as  He 
calls  us  we  walk  by  faith  toward  the  glory  that 
shall  be. 


THE   END 


A     000110984     2 


